


Say It Again

by tellthenight



Series: I'll Hold On to You [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Anxiety, Depression, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Established Relationship, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-17 14:17:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4669745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tellthenight/pseuds/tellthenight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something has been getting to Cas lately. Maybe because they are in their final year of college, maybe because of the stress of his family, maybe because of the things gone unsaid between Cas and Dean over the previous 4 years- but the reason behind Castiel's behavior doesn't really matter. It's the consequences that he'll have to live with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dean

“What else do we need to do?” Dean asked.

 

“Just push furniture back, I think. Bigger walkways are always better when people are drinking.” Charlie said. She grabbed the recliner and pulled it back. Dean followed suit with the couch.

 

“Where do you want the coffee table?” Dean asked. Charlie started to answer, but the door opened and Cas stormed in, rushing up the stairs without a hello.

 

“That can’t be good,” Charlie said.

 

“I’ll check on him. He had an exam today he’s been worrying about for a week.” Dean went up after Cas. Their bedroom door was closed and when he pushed it open Cas’s backpack blocked the path and Cas was splayed over the bed face down.

 

“Hey, Cas. Everything okay?” Dean asked.

 

“This has been the worst day,” Cas said into the blankets.

 

“What happened?”

 

“I was late this morning for my first class and I left my paper here. Thank god I still had paper credits to print it again for the peer review thing. And the exam was disastrous. I’m pretty sure I failed it.”

 

“Why don’t you come down and get a drink? We’re getting everything moved around right now, but you can just sit and relax while we finish getting ready.”

 

“I just want to go to bed.”

 

“Come on, Cas. It’s a party. You can relax and hang out.”

 

“I just want to stay up here and-”

 

“It’s Benny’s birthday.” Dean said. He grabbed Cas by the wrist and pulled him upright. “We’ll drink and dance” he leaned down close. “and I bet there’s a fun ending in it for you if you play your cards right.” Dean kissed him and grinned wide. “Come on down. I’ll get you a drink.”

 

Cas groaned, but he allowed Dean to pull him off the bed and lead him downstairs.

 

“Hey, Cas!” Charlie was her usual cheerful self and but Cas couldn’t even be roused to offer a small smile. She put her hands to her hips and glared at him. “Stop that right now. Benny will be here soon and you need to take that attitude elsewhere.”

 

“I told Dean I’d rather stay upstairs, but-”

 

“Stop it. Drink. Now.” Dean pushed him in the direction of the kitchen and stayed with Charlie to continue getting everything ready. He set up chairs while she took a final turn around the room adjusting things to her liking.

 

“Andrea’s bringing him back around seven, so everyone should be here by then.” Charlie looked around the room again checking for anything else to adjust. “I think we’re ready. We just have to get food out later. High five, Winchester! Good work.” She slapped his palm on her way to the kitchen.

 

Dean followed, and Cas was sitting at their little kitchen table, a very full beer in one hand.

 

“Going to get started or are you going to stare at it all night?” he teased. Cas didn’t take the joke, so Dean eased into the chair next to him. “It’s going to be okay, Cas. You thought you failed the first exam for that class too, right? And that one turned out okay.”

 

“You don’t understand. I didn’t even get to the last part and-”

 

The doorbell rang and Dean glanced at Charlie. She went to take care of it as Dean turned his attention back to his boyfriend.

 

“Anyway, it was awful. April didn’t finish either and you know how she is on exams-”

 

There were loud welcomes going on out in the living room and the start of the music now that a few people had arrived. Dean smiled, apology written over his face.

 

“Can we talk later? It looks like we’re starting a little early.”

 

“Yeah. Sure.” Cas mumbled, and stayed in his seat while Dean went out to greet friends.

 

It wasn’t long before they had a good group there, a few people playing xbox, some music and conversation going, Every time Dean looked around Cas was on his own, usually in the kitchen. After a while Dean excused himself from where most everyone was hanging out and joined Cas.

 

“Can you just, like, come in with me? You don’t have to say anything, but just be part of the group, you know?”

 

“I’m really not up to it, Dean.”

 

“Can you put it aside ‘til tomorrow or something? It’s only Benny’s birthday once and he’s going to be here soon.”

 

Cas didn’t have a good argument back so Dean grabbed his hand and pulled him out to the living room with everyone else. Dean talked and Cas stood there, impatiently biding his time until Benny showed up.

 

When he did everyone cheered for him and a spontaneous “Happy Birthday” song broke out. Benny grinned wide and blushed at the same time from all the attention and Andrea proudly gripped his arm. Dean shook his hand and pulled him into a hug, wishing him a happy birthday close to his ear since the previous noise level rebounded now that the birthday boy had arrived.

 

Dean went to grab Benny and Andrea each a beer and when he came back he realized Cas was nowhere to be seen. Dean looked to Charlie and mouthed, “Cas?” at her, but she shrugged and went back to her conversation. He went back to the kitchen thinking maybe they’d passed each other in the crowd, but he wasn’t there either. He figured Cas had retreated upstairs. He was doing that more and more lately- pulling back on hard days and ignoring everyone around him in favor of time alone.

 

Dean weaved in and out of people to get to the stairs and went up. He could feel the music more than hear it when he hit the next floor, but the bedroom door was still closed against it all. He eased it open.

 

“Cas?”

 

He was face down in the bed again, this time covered over with all their blankets. Dean sat down next to him and rubbed his back.

 

“Hey. You want to talk now?”

 

“I want to sleep.”

 

“You’re going to sleep with all this noise?”

 

“I’ll set my mind to it.”

 

Dean rolled his eyes. “Come on Cas. It’s one exam and you probably did just fine. You overreact sometimes-”

 

Cas pushed up and twisted to Dean. “Overreact? It’s an important course in my major, Dean. If I fail this class I don’t graduate in the spring.”

 

Dean gripped his arm. “So you take it again. What does it matter if you graduate in four years or four years plus one semester?

 

“Then I have to wait through another spring semester before I can start grad school and-”

 

“Cas. Please. You’re making this worse than it has to be.”

 

“You know what? Shut the fuck up, Dean. Get out of here.”

 

Dean let go of him, but sat there stunned. The anger didn’t melt from Cas’s face and he didn’t look the slightest bit remorseful like he had before when they’d said things in haste while arguing.

 

“Okay. Um... okay.” Dean stood and went to the door. “I’m just trying to help,” he said, but Cas sunk back into the bed and Dean left, closing the door behind him.

 

Dean descended the stairs to a bright smile from Charlie that quickly faded.

 

“He’s not coming down?”

 

Dean snorted. “I believe his exact words were ‘shut the fuck up and get out’.”

 

Charlie frowned and glanced up the stairs. “This is not normal.”

 

“No, but you can only ask someone to talk so many times before you get the hint, you know?” Dean shrugged. “Maybe he’ll be better tomorrow if we just leave him.”

 

“Okay,” Charlie said, but her answer was reluctant at best. Dean pushed through to find Benny again, and after a short stint there frequently interrupted by well-wishers he moved back to the living room. He tried to fit into a conversation, but his mind was upstairs with Cas trying to figure out the problem.

 

The door opened every so often letting a few new people in and a few people out and mostly it went unnoticed by Dean, but Charlie was keeping an eye out and she motioned to Dean at one point to join her while she refilled chips.

 

“Did you see April come in?” she asked.

 

“No. Did she?”

 

“She’s upstairs with Cas right now.”

 

“What the hell?” Dean looked up at the ceiling like he could bore straight through into the bedroom with his eyeballs. “He calls her to come over and talk when I was in there with him practically begging him to tell me what’s wrong?”

 

“I don’t know.” Charlie flushed a little. “Get those other bags up there and we’ll put them out too.” She motioned to a few bags of chip on top of their refrigerator. Dean reached them easily and pulled the top open. He put them on the counter, clearing it of empty bags while he was there.

 

“Should I go up?”

 

“I don’t know. Maybe he can talk it through with her and get himself together so he can talk to you.”

 

Dean glanced back at the ceiling.

 

“Are you worried about her being alone with Cas?” Charlie smacked his shoulder. “Are you jealous?”

 

“Of course not, just…” Dean looked around to check who might be close enough to hear and leaned in. “I just want him to talk to me. He hasn’t really been telling me much lately and…” he rubbed the back of his neck and looked away from her. “I don’t know. I feel like he’s cutting me off. He says he’s stressed, but he contributes to his own stress level and won’t hear anything but how crazy his workload is.”

 

“He’s always been like that, Dean.”

 

“I know.” Dean looked back up as if he would be able to see Cas through the ceiling. “But usually he pulls me in. He’s pushing me out a lot lately.”

Charlie suddenly put her arms around his waist and pressed her head to Dean’s chest. “He’s just going through something, Dean. It’s probably nothing big and he has to work it out before he can talk about it.”

 

Dean nodded absently over her head. Maybe she was right. Maybe Cas couldn’t talk about it until he had solved the problem. That would be a total Castiel Milton move now that he thought about it. Dean squeezed Charlie and pulled her away from his body. “Thank you. I’ll let him cool off and see if he’ll talk tomorrow.”

 

“Good plan. Now try to have some fun.”

 

Dean grabbed another beer for himself and returned to the living room.

 

“Winchester.”

 

It took him a moment, but he spotted Pamela near the door and met her with a  wide smile.

 

“Did you just get here?”

 

“A few minutes ago. Where’s that boy toy of yours?”

 

“He had a stressful day so I’m solo tonight.”

 

“Hmmm.” Pamela smiled, one corner of her mouth tipped up. “I think you owe me a drink after that last quiz I helped you with.”

 

Dean grinned. “I think you’re right.”

 

She followed him to the kitchen and took the cup he handed her. “So Cas is…?”

 

“Upstairs. Hiding out, I guess.”

 

“Hell of a party to try to hide from.”

 

Dean shrugged and leaned back against the counter. “He’s so… I don’t know. He puts a lot of pressure on himself. He always has.”

 

“How long have you two been together?”

 

Dean laughed. “Four years almost.”

 

Pamela choked on her beer. “That is a fucking long time.”

 

“Doesn’t feel like it. Well, maybe today, but this isn’t…”

 

Pamela watched him, waiting for him to finish the sentence. When he didn't she leaned over and bumped his shoulder. “Isn’t what?”

 

Dean shook his head. He’d had two classes with Pamela, and they were getting to know each other a lot better as part of a study group this semester, but it was still a little strange standing there talking to her about his boyfriend problems.

 

“I don’t know- it isn’t normal for him. Cas has kind of a bad past and he does better with it than most, but lately everything is really getting to him.”

 

“So maybe he needs some room.”

 

“That’s basically what Charlie said earlier.”

 

“I always thought she was smart. Is she single?”

 

Dean had a moment of mental whiplash. “Are you…?”

 

Pamela laughed, almost doubling over at his expression. “I like interesting. I kind of go wherever I can find that.”

 

He laughed too and when Pamela recovered she shook her head at him. “It’ll get better with your boy. Time and end of semesters seem to help.”

 

“Isn’t that true,” he said.

 

Pamela grinned at him and  hugged him. “It’ll work out, Winchester. Don’t worry.”

 

Dean patted her back with one hand. She was right, Charlie was right- Cas would come back to center after things calmed down and they’d get it all worked out.

 

“God, Dean! Cas is right fucking here!”

 

Dean looked up into the doorway where Cas stood, mouth open and April just behind him.

 

“What?”

 

“You have your goddamn hands all over her, that’s what!” April insisted. Cas pushed back past her into the living room and she delivered a little sarcastic smile straight to Dean.

 

“Oh, you can go to hell, April.” Dean pushed past her too, probably rougher than he should have. Charlie directed him upstairs when he hit the living room and he took the stairs two at a time.

 

The door was locked and he beat on it several times. “Let me in, Cas. I’m not going to talk to you through the fucking door.”

 

“There is nothing you have to say to me!”

 

“Well, for one, April is a goddamn liar. I was talking to Pamela about you!”

 

He heard the lock turn quick and the door popped open. Cas’s face was bright with anger and he shook when he spoke. “I saw the whole thing too, asshole.”

 

“The whole thing? She hugged me and said you and me would get stuff worked out! That was the whole thing!”

 

Cas flung the door hard against the wall and retreated back into the bedroom. Dean followed and closed the door behind him.

 

“Can we just talk about whatever is actually bothering you because you have been weird for a while now.”

 

“Would you just shut up? This is not about me- this is about you and the ungodly amount of flirting you do with anyone who is not me.”

 

All the air deflated out of Dean. He had no idea what Cas was talking about unless it was coming from... “Is that what April tells you? I’m cheating on you or whatever?”

 

“April is apparently the only goddamn friend I have that tells me the truth, so yeah. I know everything.”

 

“I have no idea what you could possibly be talking about, Cas. I have never cheated on anyone in my life- most of all not you. I would never-”

 

“But you’re downstairs with your arms around that girl-”

 

“By that definition I hit on Charlie at least once a week.”

 

“You know what I mean!”

 

“No, Cas. I don’t! I’m really not-” Dean breathing only got faster as he realized the whole thing was spiraling irrevocably out of control. “I don’t know why you’re doing this.”

 

“I’m not the one flirting all over campus.” Cas’s bitter words punched out the last fight Dean had in him. He put his hands in the air.

 

“I’m gonna’ go then. I obviously can’t change your mind about this, so I’ll go and when you’re ready to talk about this, I want to talk.”

 

“Oh, no- you don’t get to walk out on this conversation.” Cas went to the door and looked back, hand on the doorknob. “I’m not going to let you treat me like this anymore. We’re done,” he said and then he was gone.

  
Dean wanted to call after him, but instead he sank down on the bed, completely blinded by what had just happened. The music went on underneath his feet, thumping away like his life  hadn’t just disintegrated right in front of his eyes.


	2. Dean

Benny had already gone back to Andrea’s place when Dean went downstairs hoping Cas might be down there, but he had left and the last few partiers were heading out for the night. Charlie sat up with him until she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore and fell asleep on the couch. There was no way Dean could settle enough to sleep so he ended up doing a lot of the post-party clean up. He carried a trash bag around collecting disposable cups and he took care of a spill that would have made Charlie seeth if she had caught it herself. He bagged the trash in the kitchen too and even did the dishes before he saw the sun pop up through the kitchen window. He carried the full trashbags out the back door to the trash can in bare feet and rushed back in, rubbing his arms against the October cold.

 

Dean checked his phone again for messages, and then made himself lay down next to Charlie on the couch to see if he could get at least an hour or two before he went to work. There was no point, though. His mind kept racing through everything that had been said, thinking back through the previous weeks to try to figure out what April could have even referred to as flirting with other people- at the thought of April anger spiked and he couldn’t… Cas was probably staying with her. The people Cas was closest to all lived in this house aside from April and she probably threw him on her broomstick and flew off with him the moment he stormed downstairs after that insane fight.

 

An hour before he had to get to the garage Dean went up to grab a shower and change. He ultimately decided to go in early just to get out of the house where so much ugly had happened the night before.

 

John was already there and he smiled when he saw Dean at the door. “Well, look who’s bright and early for once.”

 

Dean managed a tight smile and went back to his locker to get ready for the day. John followed him back.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“Nothing. Is, uh… is Cas coming in?”

 

“He’s scheduled for the afternoon.”

 

“You think I can cut out early or are we loaded heavy?”

 

“Saturdays are full of oil changes. I’d really rather you stayed.”

Dean nodded. “No problem. I’ll stay.”

 

“Everything okay with you two?”

 

Dean didn’t know what came over him but his eyes flooded furiously and he could hardly draw a breath. That question brought it all together. He was going to have to tell his dad that Cas- who had essentially been part of the family for almost four years- was maybe not anymore and...

 

“Dean?”

 

“I- I think he broke up with me last night. Or… I don’t know.” He swiped at his eyes and shook his head, trying to clear it all away.

 

John put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Okay. Why don’t you come in the office with me. It’s a slow start this morning so I don’t need you out there ‘til a little later.”

 

Dean nodded, unable to speak for fear tears would come again. He followed his dad to the office, walking past Rufus and Bobby.

 

John stopped to shake hands with Bobby, but told Dean to go ahead without him. Dean overheard the reason Bobby was there with one of his cars, but didn’t really register it. He wasn’t really making much sense of anything, just trying to get himself to a place where he wouldn’t completely break down in front of his father.

 

His efforts failed though. When John closed the door behind himself, sat behind his desk and asked what had happened it all poured out of Dean in an awkward tumble of words, tears, and anger. John let Dean talk until it was all out and then sat quiet.

 

“Did I mess this up?” Dean finally asked.

 

“It doesn’t sound like it, but I can’t say for sure. I mean, I’m not you or Cas so I can’t know the full story no matter how much you tell me.” John leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “You said Cas has been off for awhile. How long?”

 

“I don’t know. Before the semester started I think, but worse the last few weeks with midterms and stuff.”

 

“Anything else going on outside of school? Cas is still getting along with Benny and Charlie?”

 

“Nothing I know of. And even me and him- we haven’t been fighting or anything, he’s just not himself. He’s anxious and stressed and… I don’t know. Maybe I should have seen this coming? Done something?”

 

“Dean, stop blaming yourself. That won’t help you or Cas and we don’t even know what’s going on.”

 

Dean started tearing up again. “Dammit. I can’t stop…” He scrubbed at his eyes. “I couldn’t sleep at all.”

 

“Stay in here for a little bit. Sleep or grab some coffee. Come out when you’re ready and I’ll get you going on something. Maybe working will keep your mind off things for awhile. And if you want to come in here with Cas when he gets here that’s fine.”

 

“He probably won’t want to see me.”

 

“You don’t know that. Maybe he had a long night thinking about this mess too.”

 

*****************

 

John was right- working gave him enough to do to take his mind off the situation until lunch. He ended up eating with his dad and Bobby- who had come back in to pick up his car- and counting the seconds until Cas was due for his shift. The bell on the door rang promptly at one and Cas rushed past the break room door and into the office. Dean stared back down at the sandwich he’d barely touched while he tried to get his heart to stop thudding out of his chest.

 

“I’ll be in the office, I guess.” he said and John nodded.

 

He pushed the door open and Cas was standing behind the desk shuffling things around.

 

“I’m sorry I’m a little late, John. I-” Cas looked up and his already wide blue eyes grew again. “Dean…”

 

“Hey. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

 

“Um, yeah.”

 

“Did you have somewhere to sleep last night?”

 

Cas looked down and blushed. “Yeah. I stayed with April.”

 

Dean nodded. Of course he did. “Are you coming home tonight?”

 

Cas paled at that and sank into the chair. “I didn’t think…” his eyes darted back and forth across the desk like he was searching for his next words. “I thought you… I thought we were done.”

 

“Is that what you meant last night? To break up with me?”

 

Cas stilled but didn’t look up. “Yes,” he said softly.

 

Dean’s stomach turned and he stepped back to lean against the wall. “Really? Is that… is that what you still want?”

 

The longer Cas went without saying anything the sicker Dean felt and he was about to make a break for the bathroom when Cas spoke.

 

“I don’t know what I want.”

 

Dean felt desperate then- he had to make Cas understand that half of what had been said last night was based on a lie. “Cas, I don’t flirt with other people. You have to know that. I would never cheat, I-”

 

“I know.”

 

“Then what? What is going on here?” Anger edged out fear in Dean’s mind. This was the very big and very real question he had, but Cas went silent again.

 

“You can’t just break up with me and not tell me why.” Dean said. “You have to-”

 

“I don’t know, okay? I don’t!” Cas looked up at him, tears streaking two straight lines down his face.

 

Dean went around the desk and knelt next to the chair. “Cas, please just talk to me. I want to fix this- whatever it is.”

 

“I was awful to you.”

 

“It’s okay.”

 

“You can’t want me back.”

 

“Cas, since I met you it has always been you.” It was true and he said it strong, but the fear over his feelings not being returned weighed heavy. It would be the thing that pulled them back together or the thing that confirmed the end for Cas. “We’ll work it out. I want to work it out.”

 

Dean reached for Cas’s hands and squeezed them tight, but Cas didn’t return the motion.

 

“Will you come home with me after work?” Dean asked.

 

“Can I?” Cas turned his big eyes to Dean and Dean’s heart broke. Cas looked genuinely lost and worried that he had no place to go.

 

“Cas.” Dean forced him into a fierce but stiff hug. He willed Cas to relax, to let him hold him and help him, but it felt like Cas just couldn’t. Cas’s spine stayed rigid, and his head never hit Dean’s shoulder the way he usually did, but his hands came up and clung to Dean’s shirt.

 

“Why are you doing this?” Cas said softly against Dean’s neck.

 

A million reasons why flashed through his head. That he couldn’t imagine a life without Cas, that he was terrified of the idea of losing him, that he loved him desperately-

 

“Because I love you and whatever is going on doesn’t change that,” he said. Cas leaned into him then, his forehead pressed into Dean’s shoulder. He shook in Dean’s arms and Dean held him tighter.

 

“I think there’s something wrong with me.” Cas’s voice came small and shaking.

 

“I don’t know about that,” Dean said. It was the best he could do. There was obviously something wrong here, but he wasn’t going to say it in so many words to Cas.

 

“There is. I can’t sleep and this semester has been the worst and I- with you- I don’t know what to say about all that. It was like I was watching myself say all those things…”

 

“So maybe you talk to someone and see if we can figure it out.”

 

Cas pushed back and sat up, sniffing. Dean was reluctant to take his hands off of him, but he did as Cas straightened up and cleared his face of emotion. “I have to get to work.”

 

“Me too. I’ll see you after work?”

 

Cas nodded, but his eyes had fallen back to the desk and his face went blank.

 

“Cas.” Dean waited until Cas looked up. “I love you.”

 

Cas nodded again, but the blank look returned. He started to shuffle papers around and Dean took the hint. He went back to work with the nagging feeling that Cas might not come home with him after all.

 

************

 

He was wrong. Cas was ready to go before Dean was, but he waited patiently while Dean changed and cleaned up. Dean smiled at him when he came out to the garage to get him, but Cas didn’t offer anything back. He was quiet all the way out to the Impala and all the way home. Dean was a little afraid to risk saying much of anything. No one was home when they got there, and Dean was thankful for that small mercy. The last thing Cas would want was attention from anyone else right now, no matter how kind the attention was intended.

 

Dean followed Cas inside. “I’m going to grab a shower. Think about what you want to do for dinner. Maybe we order something tonight?”

 

Cas nodded faintly and plopped onto the couch. The tv was on before Dean reached the top of the stairs.

 

As the water ran hot over him, Dean tried to tamp down the guilt that rose with every thought of Cas. How had this thing gotten so bad without his notice? He knew Cas wasn’t sleeping well all the time, but it seemed to even out. He knew this semester had been more stressful, but it was more stressful for all of them as they neared graduation. Dean scrubbed his head more vigorously than necessary, like he could wash the worry right out of his mind if he just pressed hard enough.

 

By the time Dean had finished in the shower, he had a plan. They’d sit and eat and talk and figure it out. Together. He just had to get Cas to actually talk like he hadn’t in… well, it was a lot longer than Dean wanted to say. Maybe early in the summer when they’d gone with his parents and Sam to the lake for a long weekend? They’d stayed out on the dock well past midnight talking about grad school and what they wanted to do after. Watching Cas stare up into the stars as he talked about working with kids some day, Dean couldn’t help the fond smile developing on his face. Cas caught him staring and teased him, then Dean had leaned over his dark-haired boy with the wide blue eyes, kissed him and asked if he could always be there with him. Cas had laughed at that and said, “Of course. Where else would you be?”

 

Dean pulled on the clothes he’d stacked on the edge of the sink, and went into their bedroom to put his stuff away. He tossed his towel up on the hook, grabbed a pair of socks out of the drawer and sat on the edge of the bed to put them on. He pushed his drawer closed on his way back out of the room, then caught that Cas’s were open too. He kicked the bottom one closed, then he pushed the other two.. which were remarkably light. And empty, he realized.

 

“Hey, Cas?” He called as he started downstairs. “Cas?”

  
The tv was still on, but Cas wasn’t watching. Dean’s heart started to beat out of his chest as he tore into the kitchen and it didn’t slow at the emptiness he found there.


	3. Dean

It took some calling around to find her, but twenty minutes later Dean was a few blocks over outside of April’s apartment beating on her door.

 

She answered with a sigh and a healthy dose of side-eye. “What do you want?”

 

“I know he’s here. Let me talk to him.”

 

“You’re a little late for that- aren’t you, lover boy?”

 

“Just let me in.” Dean started toward the door but April stood her ground, straightening to show as much height as she could muster. She stared him down.

 

“Absolutely not.” For as small as she was, she was intimidating and Dean took her seriously.

 

“Cas!” he yelled over her. “Cas, just come out and talk to me!”

 

“He doesn’t want to talk to you, Dean.” She said his name like it was rotting in her mouth.

 

“Why are you doing this? Me and Cas have a good thing-”

 

April laughed. “Obviously not that good if he could break it off over as little as I gave him.”

 

“What the hell-” Dean grabbed the door and stepped into her space, but April didn’t budge.

 

“Do you know how often he has told me how small he feels around you? How he just trails after you? I told him the truth- it isn’t right how little attention you give him. How you put yourself ahead of him. And then when I told him what I saw” she made air quotes with her fingers and sneered. “with a random girl on campus he tried to insist you would never, but then you made it easy to reinforce the idea last night. I mean- your hands around that girl- that was all Cas needed.”

 

“Why?” Dean choked out.

 

“I appreciate a good thing when I see it and Cas has been telling me for months how you don’t.” April stepped back and wrenched the door out from his hands. “He’s not here by the way. I haven’t seen him since he left for work, but I have a feeling he’ll be sleeping here tonight.”

 

“You know he’s gay, right?”

 

She laughed again. “Not why I did it,” she said and pulled the door nearly closed. “And he slept under me last night, so I think I know better than you. Not that we did much sleeping.” She slammed the door closed and Dean heard the deadbolt slide. He hit the door once more with a firm fist only to hear her laughter behind it.

 

“You’re a fucking liar, April!”

 

“Believe what you like!” she called, and Dean felt sick.

 

*****************

 

“She’s a fucking liar. There is no way Cas would sleep with her.” Benny said.

 

“Then where the hell is he?”

 

“Dean.” Charlie tilted her head forward and put on her “mother” eyes. “None of this came from Cas and April is obviously a lying manipulative bitch, so let’s not trust anything she has to say.”

 

“But, Charlie… why? Why would he…?

 

Charlie looped her arms around Dean and he let her pull him up against her body. He rested his head on her shoulder and tried to keep from crying.

 

“I don’t know. He hasn’t been himself lately- we know that. So, maybe that came first? And then the heinous bitch?”

 

They had all taken turns calling him, but Cas wasn’t picking up for anyone. Dean had eventually left him a message asking him to text to let him know he had somewhere to stay, but there hadn’t been a text back. Not yet.

 

In one motion Dean pushed himself to sitting then up off the couch. He grabbed his jacket. “I’m going for a drive.”

 

He drove around aimlessly for a long time before he decided where he wanted to go. He pulled up along the long road where the pond was and parked. It was almost midnight and cold because of it, but it felt right to be back at the place where he’d finally collected the courage to ask Cas out for the very first time. There was too much he didn’t know- how much of what April said was true, what Cas really thought of him, what was really going on with Cas…

 

Dean walked over the little grass rise and it looked like someone else had the same idea, out for a late-night thinking session next to the water. Dean veered off to walk around the pond, but then the person on the bench turned and in the faint light, he recognized Cas. He was running toward him before he could stop himself.

 

Cas stared up at him like he was afraid and Dean sat down very quickly. Cas scooted away, eyes fixed on Dean’s.

 

“Cas. I’ve been calling and I went to April’s-”

 

“You did?” Cas scooted farther over on the bench. “Was she- was she there?”

 

“Yes. She’s been feeding you bullshit about me so you would leave me.”

 

Cas looked away. “So you talked to her.”

 

“She told me the whole thing. She’s been manipulating you and I’m sorry you felt like I wasn’t giving you enough attention or whatever. I will do better. You just have to tell me.”

 

Silence grew between them and it was easy to let it continue in the dark. Dean’s insides ate at him as he wondered if what he’d said was enough, if Cas would even consider coming home with him for real this time.

 

“She told you everything?” Cas asked softly.

 

“Yeah. She’s a liar, Cas. Everything she told you about me isn’t true. She was lying to me about you, too-”

 

“What did she say about me?” Cas looked suspicious, and that was exactly what Dean had hoped for. If he recognized her lies to Dean maybe he’d recognize that she’d been lying to him as well. “She said that you two slept together last night. It was ridiculous and-”

 

“That was true.”

 

Dean wasn’t expecting that hit and the world felt dizzy and wrong. “What… what did you say?”

 

“She- I did. We did… I’m sorry.”

 

“You’re sorry.” Dean could barely hear anything aside from the roar in his head. Of all Cas’s faults he never thought this sort of thing would be a problem they had to face. “We fought and you went off to April and fucked her and…”

 

“We were broken up.” Cas said it plain, staring blankly ahead.

 

“Look, I’m not going to “Rachel and Ross” this thing with you. If we were broken up you still don’t go and fuck someone else that same goddamn night.”

 

Cas leaned over, elbows on knees, head in hands. “We drank a lot at her place and I was really drunk and I don’t even really remember it-” he groaned. “Dean…”

 

Numbness settled over Dean and he couldn’t think of anything that mattered at all in that moment. “Are you with her now?” He wanted to yell and be silent at the same time so what came out of him was tense and focused.

 

“I don’t know. No.”

 

“Which is it?” Dean looked at him. Cas still sat hunched over his knees in the dark.

 

“No.”

 

“Are you still with me?”

 

Cas looked up at him, eyes wide in the moonlight. “You can’t be serious.” His eyes squinted in the confused expression Dean had come to love, but in this context it felt more like an insult.

 

Dean laughed humorlessly. “Well, I guess that answers that.” He stood and took a few steps away. Space. He needed more space between them.

 

“You can’t possibly want to take me back after that.”

 

“I don’t know…” he didn’t know, not really, and at the same time… “You’re not yourself lately, Cas. You said you think something is wrong.”

 

Cas stiffened and his voice grew harsh. “Don’t give me excuses.”

 

“I’m not, but you’ve been like this for a while and we need to look into that.”

 

“We’re not ‘we’, Dean. Not anymore.” he spoke with hard words again and refused to look at Dean.

 

“I’m willing to at least talk about this. Work it out maybe-”

 

“No. We’re done.”

 

The panic rose in Dean’s throat again at those words and desperation broke over his common sense. “Cas, I get a say in this!”

 

“You think I fucking cheated on you! I don’t know why you don’t understand that this relationship is over.” Cas shook his head and looked out across the calm water of the pond. “I’ll come get my stuff tomorrow around 5. If you could not be there when I get there that would be great.”

 

“Where are you even going to go?”

 

“I’ll figure something out.”

 

Dean swallowed against the rebellion in his stomach. “Cas, come on. Don’t do this.”

 

Cas didn’t look his direction again and Dean left quickly so he didn’t have to puke in front of his now ex-boyfriend.

 

*****************

 

Dean drove again. There wasn’t much of a point in going home. He wasn’t going to sleep and all Cas’s stuff was there to mock him. Charlie would probably be waiting up too and she would want to talk and… he just couldn’t. Not yet.

 

He ran over the dozens of ways that conversation could have gone, and none of them ended well. The only chance they would have had was if Cas had been willing to say that something wasn’t right here. And after what had just happened Dean felt pretty confident that Cas was going to break things off completely no matter what he said. There was no perfect combination of words that would have saved it because Cas wanted out. No matter what.

 

And April… If he ever saw her again he wasn’t sure he would be able to keep from losing his mind. All the lies she whispered, the pushes she made to get Cas to believe her and then the two of them together-

 

No. He couldn’t think about that, but guilt washed over him anyway. He had begged Cas to stay even after Cas admitted to whatever it was with April. Why? Was he really willing to forgive that? _Way to be strong, Dean. Way to do what’s best for yourself._

 

He pulled into his parents’ driveway and turned off the car. All the lights were off but Sam’s, so he texted his brother quickly to come let him in the backdoor so his dad wouldn’t think he was breaking in. Sam was at the back door a minute later, and held the door as Dean walked in.

 

“It’s late. What’s wrong?”

 

“Nothing.” Dean flicked the light in the kitchen.

 

“Um, your flaming red eyes call you a liar. What happened?”

 

“Oh, god. You have to swear not to-”

 

“Sam, I thought I told you- Dean?” John stood at the doorway to the kitchen squinting against the light. “What are you doing here?”

 

“Nothing, Dad.”

 

“Don’t do that.” He stepped closer. “You look like hell. Cas?”

 

“Yeah. It’s over.”

 

“What?” Sam asked. “You broke up with Cas?”

 

John’s gritted his teeth against the news and shook his head. “I’m sorry. You went home together, so I thought-”

 

“Yeah. You and me both.” Dean turned to his brother. “And I didn’t break up with him, dumbass. He broke up with me. So... I guess he’s going to get his stuff tomorrow but he doesn’t really have anywhere else to stay. So I was going to ask if I could maybe move back here until he can find another place.”

 

“Your room is still your room as long as you need it.”

 

Dean’s shoulders slumped and he must have looked faint because his dad crossed the kitchen in a few quick strides to grab his arm. “Let’s go sit down, okay?”

 

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

 

“You don’t have to. Let’s just sit.”

 

Dean allowed himself to be led to the living room and sat down like he was an invalid. He actually didn’t mind. He didn’t want to have to think about anything or make decisions. He wanted to go to sleep and wake up whenever a day might come that it didn’t hurt like this, and if such a day would never come he’d be happy to sleep forever.

 

“Hey, Sam- why don’t you go back up for the night. Dean will still be here in the morning.”

 

Sam looked like he wanted to argue, but he knew better. “Yeah. See you tomorrow, Dean.”

 

Dean listened to his footsteps retreat upstairs, past the squeaky seventh step they’d learned to avoid.

 

“I’ll just say one thing. If you know you did what you could to fix it or save it that’s all you could do. And if he wanted out there was nothing you could have done.”

 

That was true. Cas wanted out so he’d stepped back without notice, leaving Dean dizzy and reeling. And April on top of it all...

 

“He slept with someone else last night.”

 

“He what?” John’s tone turned and Dean looked up at him, surprised by the ferocity in his voice.

 

“He said he was really drunk. He seemed sorry, but he still… he still said we’re done.”

 

“Dean?” Dean and John both turned to the steps where Mary had come down. “What are you doing here, honey?”

 

Dean opened his mouth to say it again, but the words couldn’t leave his lips. John spoke over him. “Cas broke it off.”

 

“Oh, Dean. I’m sorry.” Mary sat next to him and put a warm comforting hand on his back. “Are you going to try to talk to him again?”

 

“I did. His mind is made up.”

 

“I’m sorry. I thought maybe Cas would be the one for you.”

 

“I looked at rings last week.” Dean stared ahead. He and Charlie had looked at the thin gold bands meant to symbolize eternal love and he’d almost bought a pair right then. A week ago he had known that he wanted to marry Cas and now they were nothing to each other. “I thought Christmas would be a good time to ask.”

 

“Dean…” Mary gathered him in her arms and he finally let go. He cried for the loss of his love and his best friend as well as the future he’d imagined for them. There would be nothing going forward- at least it seemed that way right now. Somewhere in the back of his head he knew there was still going to be life ahead of him, but right now it felt like a cliff begging him to jump.

 

“I should have known.” Dean said. “He could never say it. Four years and he could never say it out loud to me. Why did I spend four years on someone who didn’t really love me?”

 

“He loved you, Dean. Maybe he doesn’t right now, but you didn’t waste your time.” Mary said. Dean sat up and ran his hands down over his face.

 

“What am I supposed to do now?” he asked softly.

 

“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,” John said, voice gentle but firm. “ You’re going to get some sleep and we’ll all go together to get you packed tomorrow. We’ll get you moved back here for the time being and you’ll go to class and work and get used to how it is now.”

 

Dean nodded, but the very idea of what his dad suggested was impossible. He already knew there was no way he’d get back into class and work like he was before. Not any time soon.

 

“Dean, listen.” John waited for Dean to get focused on him. “You’re a good man. I know this changed your plans for the future, but you will keep going after this and when you’re ready- if you want to- you’ll find someone else to share your life with. You have your whole career and life out there. You’re almost through school-”

 

“I know, I know.” Dean covered his face, trying to will the tears to stop. “I’m gonna go to bed if that’s okay.”

 

“Of course. We’ll see you in the morning. Sleep late and we’ll go get your things whenever you’re ready.”

 

Dean stood, his body suddenly weary and dragging and went upstairs, leaving his parents in silence on the couch. Every step felt like he was dragging Cas with him, and it was made worse when he went to his room. They had lived together in that space for almost six months and there were still a few of Cas’s things in there. Dean turned right around and knocked on Sam’s door.

 

“Can I sleep in here?”

 

“I’m not as small as I used to be.” Sam said, but he scooted over. He had grown significantly through high school and now stood just a touch taller than Dean as a senior in high school and still growing. Dean laid down next to him.

 

“Sorry. I just- Cas’s stuff is in the other room.”

 

“Can I ask what happened or do you not want to talk about it anymore?”

 

Dean ran through all of it in his head, trying to pull out the significant parts for his brother, but ultimately it came down to one thing. “He changed his mind about me, I guess.” Dean said.

 

Sam didn’t say anything, but after a moment rolled to lay on his side and put an arm across his brother. “You’re a good guy, Dean, and you loved him a lot. I don’t see how he could change his mind about that.”

 

“I don’t think he ever really loved me, though. I helped him, we were best friends. And the whole relationship thing- he was always a little hesitant about that. I don’t know why I was so stupid, Sammy.”

 

“You’re not the stupid one. Cas is a tremendous idiot for bailing on you.”

 

Dean stared up at the ceiling. There was the faint outline of a solar system poster Sam had hung on his ceiling in eighth grade when he had dreams of NASA. Dean had teased him mercilessly about his math grades, but that had only propelled Sam forward to work as hard as he could to get where he wanted to go. He was aiming for MIT and it looked like that was going to work out for him.

 

“He was like my brother,” Sam said. “If I see him again I’m going to have to throw a punch.”

 

Dean groaned. “Please don’t. I don’t want to see him again. I tried tonight and god, Sammy- I begged him to stay and he told me what time he was going to get his stuff.”

 

“What an asshole.”

 

“He’s not though. He has been the last few days, but he’s not really.” That was what Dean was trying to remember and he didn’t want people to leave Cas without a soul in the world that cared about him. No one else need to know about April and that particular betrayal. His father knew and that was enough. Maybe if no one knew about that they would eventually come back around to Cas.

 

“Why are you defending him, Dean? He just broke your heart.”

 

“I know- It’s just… Cas needs someone to watch out for him and if I don’t…. like where is he sleeping if he’s not at our place? Because he doesn’t have other friends. He doesn’t reach out.”

 

“You shouldn’t worry about him like that anymore.”

  
“I can’t just shut it off, Sammy. I’ve loved him for a long time and I still….” Dean breathed in, filling his chest and letting the extra air out slowly to try to keep tears and panic at bay. “I just want to know that he’s okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :( I know, guys. I'm sorry. Cas has some serious issues and we'll hear his side next chapter.


	4. Cas

It was a long walk back to April’s in the cold. It was really over now. Dean could go on his way and find someone better. Someone who could keep their brain together and not fall apart because of a simple phone call. Someone who could actually care for Dean instead of wasting all his energy on himself. Dean didn’t deserve any of the things Cas had put him through, most of all having to take care of Cas so frequently. Dean always looked out for him and shrugged every inconvenience off like it was nothing. Cas knew it wasn’t nothing, but he also knew Dean would never say anything about it.

 

Cas knocked on April’s door, arms around his body that was going cold now that he wasn’t walking. Her roommate Meg opened the door and Cas was surprised at how relieved he was that it wasn’t April.

 

“Is April home?”

 

“Not right now, but you can come in.”

 

“Thanks.” Cas stepped in and dropped his duffle by the couch before he sat.

 

“I’m glad you came back.” Meg sat on the other end of the couch and smiled a small shy smile.

 

Cas wasn’t sure why, but it was nice to have someone that wanted to see him right now. He knew all of his friends were really Dean’s friends and they’d jump ship on him as soon as they found out what he’d done.

 

“Um, I’m not really sure how to tell you this,” Meg said. She twisted a section of her dark hair in her fingers.

 

“What?” Nervousness built in his stomach again and goddamn it if he wasn’t tired of that feeling.

 

“April’s not going to be back any time soon. I kicked her out. I mean, her stuff is still here because she has to come back with someone who has a car, but she doesn’t live here anymore.”

 

“You kicked her out since this morning?”

 

“I couldn’t let her stay after what she did to you. And I’m glad you came back here- I wasn’t sure how to find you otherwise.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“Last night. I got home and you were really wasted. Like could hardly walk. And you were talking about your boyfriend- I mean, I assumed because he showed up here looking for you this morning. Anyway, April had me help get you to her bed because you were so far gone. I didn’t really think much about it. You essentially passed out and April said she was going to let you sleep it off. So I went to bed and when I got up this morning you had already left, but then your boyfriend showed up-” Meg paused, frowning at him. “Is it Dean? Am I remembering that right?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Dean showed up looking for you and she told him you two had slept together. When he left I asked her about it because you were absolutely incapable last night and she said she made up the whole thing so Dean would break up with you. I’m pretty sure she put something in your drink. When she first moved in someone told me she had done that before and the amount of cans in the trash doesn’t add up to how drunk you were.”

 

Cas’s stomach rolled. “She what? She…You think she drugged me?”

 

“She didn’t deny it when I asked her. And from what I heard you’re not the first guy.”

 

Cas leaned forward as the room started to spin. Waking up that morning barely clothes with April next to him had been the final pin in his decision to stop things with Dean. He knew immediately it was the worst thing he’d ever done and he could never ask Dean to be with him after he’d done such a thing. But now… he groaned and tried his very best not to puke on Meg’s floor.

 

“I know- I’m sorry,” Meg said. “And I know we barely know each other, but I couldn’t let it go. I dismissed it before because I didn’t really have proof but she was flat out bragging about getting you after your boyfriend left.”

 

A vast amount of profanity flashed through Cas’s head as he sat next to this kind dark-headed girl he’d only spoken to a handful of times before.

 

“She actually said she made it all up?” Cas asked. He turned enough to look at her and Meg nodded, her dark eyes gone soft and her head tilt reeking of pity.

 

“So I didn’t and she-”

 

“No, you didn’t. For what it’s worth- when I got home last night you were only talking about Dean. I feel like I practically know the guy.”

 

Cas finally breathed again. He’d go home. Maybe it was just this part that had crossed the line for Dean, or maybe… no. It didn’t change the fact that everything in his head was bad for Dean. Everything he’d said that had cut him down. Everything he was turning into would only hurt Dean.

 

“Do you think you can explain to him and he’d understand?” Meg asked. “I mean, I’ll talk to him too if you want.”

 

“He loves me, but I don’t think so.” It was that simple, and Cas knew it. He had known how deeply Dean felt for him from very early in their relationship and that was something he never doubted- but it was also why he had ended it and after all of it- he couldn’t let Dean take him back even if he would. The emotional explosion at Benny’s party had been the catalyst for his decision to cut it off now before it got worse- He wasn’t going to continue to saddle Dean with his panic attacks, weird outbursts, depressive periods… it was too much for him to handle sometimes and asking Dean to take it on too- no. It was decided.

 

“Thank you, Meg. I- I don’t know if this will change anything, but the idea that I had cheated was really difficult for me.”

 

“Again, I don’t really know you, but you seem too nice for that kind of thing.”

 

Cas stood on shaky legs and grabbed his duffle bag. Back home it was, at least to make things right with Dean. Since it was going to end he wanted it to at least be honest. He thanked Meg and started walking to the house he shared with his friends- maybe former friends now. He’d at least stay there overnight and then leave before anyone was up.

 

He crept in quietly, but the old door creaked when he pushed it closed and the lock thunked like it always did. No one was in the living room though and the kitchen was empty too. Cas dumped his bag on the floor next to the couch, grabbed a throw blanket hanging over the top and laid down there still in his clothes. Dean might be upstairs, but he wasn’t going to risk a conversation now on no sleep. He wanted to make it as painless as possible for Dean so that he could move on and find someone healthy and whole. Someone he deserved.

 

“Dean?” Cas heard Charlie from the stairs. Shit.

 

“It’s Cas. Sorry.”

 

She came downstairs and flipped on a light. “Where have you been?” She sat next to him.

 

“At April’s.”

 

“Oh.”  Between the short reply and the sad look on her face Cas was positive that she knew everything. And if she knew about the thing with April… he hadn’t prepared himself to lose all his friends, but of course Charlie would stick with Dean.

 

“I don’t know what Dean told you about April.”

 

“We last saw him after he talked to her. She said some awful things.”

 

“That we slept together?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“It’s kind of a long story, but it didn’t happen. I don’t remember, but I just talked to April’s roommate Meg and she said-” Cas looked away. The whole thing was ridiculous and foolish- trusting her instead of Dean or Charlie or Benny. “She said April lied about the whole thing and I guess she gave me something last night and that’s why I don’t remember. I mean I woke up with a really bad hangover and I asked her and she said we did so-”

 

“So you told Dean you did because you believed her?”

 

Cas ground the heel of his hand into his forehead. “You know what, Charlie? This whole week… this whole goddamn week has sucked. My mom and school and this whole fucking thing…” He looked up to see Charlie watching him with her sad eyes and Cas crumbled a little more.

 

“I’d really like to know what’s been going on if you’ll tell me,” she said.

 

“I needed to break it off with Dean. Don’t try to talk me back into-”

 

“I’m not trying to do that, Cas. I just want to help. And I’m really sorry that I didn’t catch on that something was happening with you before now.”

 

“I’m not your responsibility, Charlie.”

 

She pulled away a little bit, frowning and hurt. “You aren’t anyone’s responsibility, Cas. You’re my friend and I should have noticed because of that.”

 

If only she was right. She was Dean’s friend and had become Cas’s by default. They weren’t friends on their own. Not really.

 

“So what’s been going on, Cas?" she asked.

 

“What the fuck do you want me to say, Charlie?” Cas hated when she pushed, but she was Charlie and she always pushed for answers. “You want me to pour out my guts about how depressed I’ve been and how much I’m drinking and panic attacks? Because I can go on all night about that, but you’re not going to talk me into going back to Dean. He deserves better than this! You have to know that.” Cas leaned back then and breathed in and out, trying to calm back down.

 

Charlie pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. She rested her cheek against her knee and stared at him. Cas felt suddenly bare and heat flooded his face.

 

“What?” he asked softly.

 

“Why didn’t you just say something?”

 

“What do you mean?” All the fight had gone out of him and he was suddenly tired. He lay against the arm of the couch to escape her steady gaze.

 

“About all this. We could have helped. All of us, not just Dean. You have a lot of people that love you, Cas.”

 

Cas cleared his throat and tried not to let his voice crack. “I’ve been doing okay for so long and then this semester hit and… I’m always the one that needs help and… for once I’d like to be the one that can figure it out and take care of it.”

 

“But you need help right now and there is nothing wrong with that, Cas.” She scooted over into his space and hugged him tight despite the awkward position and Cas went rigid against her. He knew she meant it for comfort, but he didn’t deserve it. He should feel bad for his behavior over the last several days and Charlie should be mad for what he did to Dean, but this instead… It was too much like what Dean would have done for him.

 

“Do you have insurance under your parents?” Charlie asked.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I think we need to find you a therapist.”

 

Cas closed his eyes against it all. “Charlie, I don’t-”

 

“I’ll help you.” She squeezed him again and a few tears escaped his eyes.

 

“You don’t have to do this,” he croaked.

 

“You’re my friend.”

 

“But what I did to Dean-”

  
“You’re my friend,” Charlie insisted. “And you need help.”


	5. Cas

Cas woke up to Charlie’s phone going off. He stretched while she answered, and watched her eyes go wide as she listened. She held up a finger to Cas and went upstairs away from him. He checked his phone- it was almost ten in the morning and Cas wondered if he had actually slept for more than four hours for once. Solid blocks of sleep hadn’t happened regularly for months now.

 

“Hey, Cas?” Charlie came back down the stairs again. “Dean’s coming over to get his things in a little while. If you want to talk to him about what’s been going on with you this would be a good time.”

 

“Charlie, I can’t. I already ruined everything. And Dean needs-”

 

“You don’t get to decide what Dean needs. Dean decides that. So talk to him and be honest and give him a choice.” She sat next to him and put a hand on his back, rubbing gently.

 

“I’m not going to get involved with him again.”

 

“You say that like you haven’t loved him for four years.”

 

“I need to... “ Cas’s chest stuttered as it caught on a breath. “I need to protect him,” he finished softly.

 

“Cas, he doesn’t need protecting.”

 

Cas covered his face with his hands. “I just keep hurting him and I can’t… I can’t keep doing this.”

 

“Do you want to be with him, though?”

 

“I’m not good enough.”

 

“Pretty sure Dean would disagree.”

 

Cas started to cry and Charlie wrapped her arms around him.

 

“Hey. It’s going to be okay, Cas.” She said. “Why don’t you get a shower and get changed? He’ll be here soon and I’ll let him know you want to talk so we don’t blindside him.”

 

“Do you think he’ll actually want to talk?”

 

“Pretty sure.”

 

Cas grabbed his duffle and went upstairs to their room. He gathered some clothes from the bag he had hastily packed the night before and went to turn the shower on. It took a few minutes to warm up, especially now that it was getting colder outside. He sat on the edge of the tub while he waited. What on earth was he supposed to say? “Sorry I screamed at you and said horrible things and trusted a crazy person instead of you and then broke up with you again and said horrible things AGAIN…”

 

Cas stripped down and got into the shower. There was nothing he could say that would possibly appeal to Dean. He would tell it all honest and Dean would still be done with him- it had gone too far. Cas had let it get there because he felt so hopeless, and Charlie was right-

 

Cas gagged with the realization. In an emotional downturn he had destroyed it all, and even asking Dean for a chance seemed foul and evil. He had hurt him, ruined the thing they’d built together all on his own in one ugly evening. Tears came then and he turned into the shower head, letting the hot water pour over his face. He moved through robotically afterward. Shampoo, soap, wash, scrub until it was time to turn the water off and he didn’t want to step out. Out there was cold and pressing and he’d have to talk. Dean would be here soon, there would be another discussion and walking out, only this time it would be Dean doing the leaving and Cas would be left all alone…

 

Cas turned the knob and the water stilled. He grabbed his towel and wrapped it around himself, but didn’t leave the safety of the shower. He slid the curtain closed again and for a moment imagined staying there, safe from all the conversations and reactions. He dried slowly, and when he did step out of the shower he was even slower to get dressed. Boxers first, then the jeans that didn’t really fit anymore now that he was thinner. They hung off his hips, and that would have to be okay until he found a belt. He pulled the shirt over his head and when he stood in front of the mirror to brush his teeth he realized the shirt wasn’t his. It was one of the shirts that always seemed to go back and forth between them even though it was really Dean’s. It suddenly felt electric on him and Cas pulled it off over his head. No. He wouldn’t talk to Dean wearing one of his shirts. He brushed his teeth, grabbed all his laundry from the floor including the shirt he couldn’t wear and returned to their room.

 

“Hey, Cas.” Dean sat on their bed like he’d been there for awhile.

 

Cas’s mouth went dry and he barely choked out Dean’s name.

 

Dean stood up and moved to close the door. Cas watched him, his heart thudding faster with every second they were in the room together.

 

“So, I talked to Charlie a little and she said you need to clear some things up with me.”

 

Cas couldn’t form words so he nodded slightly. He couldn’t- they weren’t going to have a conversation. He wasn’t going to.

 

“Can I start though? I need to say something.” Dean said.

 

Cas nodded again and busied himself with trying to find a shirt in his mess of a duffle bag. He really had just grabbed everything and stuffed it in there. He finally settled on a plain grey tshirt and pulled it over his head while Dean paced back and forth.

 

“I’m really sorry that I didn’t see that you were in trouble. I should have caught it and I kept brushing it off and thinking you were just a little stressed or whatever. Charlie said you’re going to talk to a therapist?”

 

“Yeah.” Cas said softly.

 

Dean nodded like he was trying to convince himself. “Good. Yeah, that’s good.”

 

“So, okay. Whenever you’re ready. I don’t have anywhere else to be.” Dean looked up at him then and Cas nearly broke under the gaze. Dean looked so worried, so hurt- all because of him.

 

“I didn’t sleep with April.” he blurted out. “It was… another manipulation. Her roommate Meg was there part of the time and I talked to her last night- she said April made up the whole thing to break us up. And apparently drugged me or something and that’s why I don’t really remember it? I don’t know. Meg can tell you more if you want to know. So it didn’t happen. Not even a little.”

 

“Okay.” Dean said it simply, eyes still on Cas.

 

“I need you to know that, Dean. I wouldn’t do that to you. Even when I woke up in that situation I couldn’t believe it, but…”

 

“I got it, Cas.”

 

“I don’t want you to remember me as a cheater.”

 

Dean didn’t respond at first- he just looked over to the corner, chest rising slow and measured. “I am glad to know that. That was- that was a hard thing to take.”

 

Cas agreed. It was probably the worst part of the whole mess, and he grew angrier the more he thought about the months of manipulation at April’s hands.

 

“Anything else, Cas?”

 

“Yeah. I don’t want you to think this is your fault. I’ve felt kind of lonely for awhile… even with you… and you were right- I did turn to someone else instead of you. I should have… I should have talked to you. I just- I feel like you carry everything for us and I didn’t want you to have to do that for me again.”

 

“I never felt like that. I thought we did it together.”

 

Cas looked down to hide his wet lashes. This was where Dean would stay kind while Cas felt ugly and wrong and he didn’t think he could stand it.

 

“Don’t say that.” Cas said.

 

“What? It’s true, Cas. You aren’t some burden on me. I share with you, you share with me- even the bad stuff.”

 

“But my shit is always so much bigger than yours! You’re always holding me up and doing stuff for me, and I can never pay that back.”

 

“I don’t expect you to.”

 

Cas started to shake a little. He couldn’t decipher this information- all his feelings and worries suddenly seemed ridiculous once Dean said they were never a problem to start with. Cas knew they must be. “What do you want from me?”

 

Dean’s face crumpled a little at the question. “Why do you think I want anything from you? Cas I’ve always just wanted you. However you came to me. I don’t expect you to be any one thing or do something for me. I never have.”

 

Cas shook his head, face blank. “I don’t know what to do with that.”

 

“I know. I don’t think you ever have.” Dean smiled a little at the thought. “But seriously. This whole time I’ve just wanted you.”

 

Cas put his arms around himself. Suddenly, desperately he was overwhelmed with the feeling that all this had been a huge and awful mistake. He had to get Dean back. He was still shaking and his heart still racing, but he had to ask. “You can’t possibly still want me.”

 

Cas raised his head to find Dean looking right at him. “The thing I can’t really work around right now is the fact that you have so many people you could have turned to. If you didn’t want to tell me you could have told Charlie or Benny or my dad… and honestly, I’m really hurt that you didn’t tell me whatever is going on.”

 

“I’m supposed to tell you what a mess I am? And how depressed-” Cas stopped dead when Dean was suddenly right there, taking his hands.

 

“Yes.” Tears played on Dean’s lashes and he blinked against them. “You’re supposed to depend on me when you can’t do it yourself and honestly, Cas- that’s the hardest thing. I was talking with Sam last night and I think I realized that you don’t really love me. I mean,” Dean pause for a moment to wipe his eyes. “You do nice things for me and all that, but never once in four years have you said it out loud. Not even, like, on accident in bed or something.” Dean shook his head and looked at their hands clutched tight together between them. “So, I figured that it had to do with your parents and I never said anything. But four years is a hell of a long time to be with someone that never says they love you. And you know, after the last few days I’m pretty sure you never loved me like that. Not really.”

 

Cas felt like he’d been struck across the face. Fear crept along his chest, everything tightening. “Dean, I do lo-”

 

“Don’t! You don’t say it like this.” Dean said. His eyes almost seemed to spark with fury. “Not because of lies. I don’t want those kinds of words from you if it’s not the absolute goddamn truth and if you say it now I’ll never know if it was true.”

 

Cas nodded.

 

Dean looked down and sniffed hard against the start of tears. “You know- the stuff you said to me, I can take that hit and understand why you said it, but I asked you to tell me what was going on and practically begged you and you pushed me away. You called April instead and I can’t even fathom how you didn’t fight back when she told you those things about me. You listened to someone else instead of asking me what was going on and we can’t work like that. No one can, so.. you need to figure stuff out. I’m moving out so you can stay here. I didn’t want you to be homeless, so…”

 

Dean stepped back and let go of Cas’s hands. “I’m gonna just grab some clothes and stuff and I’ll come back for the rest later.”

 

“Dean, what just- I thought maybe…”

 

Dean closed his eyes and a tear leaked down from each eye. “Cas, I can’t. Please just maybe tell Charlie to call me when you get started with therapy and let me know how you’re doing.”

 

“But we’re not going to be together.” Cas whispered.

 

“No.” Dean said. He opened his eyes and looked everywhere but at Cas. He pulled out his dresser drawers and went through the same steps Cas had gone through just the day before, scooping everything out and into a bag.

 

“Dean.”

 

“Dammit, Cas. I’m just trying to make it through here, okay?”

 

Cas put a hand on Dean’s back and Dean turned into him, tears really falling. Cas couldn’t hold him any tighter, but it still didn’t feel close enough and the thought that it may never come back together for them was crushing. He whispered apologies against Dean’s neck and fought against his own tears.

 

“It’s okay, Cas.” Dean whispered back. “I still love you.” He turned enough to catch Cas’s lips and kiss him gently. He held there and Cas prayed he wouldn’t go away but Dean broke the kiss for a breath and leaned their foreheads together.

 

“I’m so sorry.” Cas’s words were barely understandable because his voice was so low, so thick with emotion.

 

Dean closed his eyes tight against it. “I know.” He kissed him again lightly and stepped away. Panic started to build in Cas’s chest as he watched Dean go around the room collecting the things he needed to move home and taking little pieces of Cas’s heart with every item. Dean hesitated at the door.

 

“This isn’t me leaving you, Cas. We both have to think, and I’m still your friend if you need me.”

 

“Dean…”

 

“I gotta go.” Dean said, and Cas listened to him race down the staircase.

 

He wasn’t sure how long he stood in the little room that had belonged to the two of them, but he didn’t move or think or hardly even breathe until Charlie came to check on him. She made him go downstairs and sat with him while he stared. She insisted that he take a few bites of a sandwich she made for him, and he humored her because she was there and he knew she wouldn’t budge on it.

 

She was still there in the morning when he called his mother, and the calls around to find a therapist and get an appointment set, and she was there when he got the call from John asking him to please come in to the shop when he had time.

 

“I’m going to lose my job too.” he said.

 

“You don’t know that. I don’t think Mr. Winchester would call you just to fire you.”

 

But Cas was pretty certain that breaking up with John’s son would yield a John he hadn’t encountered before.

 

Charlie drove him and when he stepped into the customer area of the garage he was numb. He was ready for whatever would happen. Nothing could be worse than losing Dean, he thought, but then John saw him and waved him into the office.

 

“Have a seat, Cas.” John motioned to the chair on the opposite side of the desk. Cas sat, and watched nervously as John got up to close the door. When John sat back behind his desk he wore his trademark indecipherable face and he looked right into Cas. Cas melted back from him.

 

“I want to talk to you about your schedule.”

 

Cas nodded. He didn’t think he could get a sound out no matter how hard he tried.

 

“I’m going to schedule you and Dean opposite so you don’t have to run into each other here. Dean said you have Tuesday and Thursday afternoons open. Can I schedule you then instead of Saturdays? I’d prefer to keep Dean on the weekend since we get so busy then.”

 

“Um… sure.” It was wrong. The whole thing- wrong. Where was the anger? The screaming and threatening?

 

“Okay. What time do you think? We close at six both those nights, and I want to make sure you get enough hours.” John was looking down at the schedule, pencil hovering.

 

“I can probably be here by 1.” Cas answered. “Mr. Winchester-”

 

John sighed and put both hands flat on the desk. He looked up at Cas with disappointment for the first time that Cas could ever remember. “Four years of calling me John and being part of my family and that’s gone now?”

 

“We… Dean and I… we broke up.” Cas stuttered out.

 

John nodded and looked back down at the schedule. “I know. I have feelings on that too, but firing you wouldn’t help anyone. You figure things out and if you need any help, Cas, you let me know.”

 

“Please don’t-” Cas shook his head furiously. “Don’t offer-” His heart beat wildly and his breathing went shallow.

 

“To help you? You have been like a son to me, Cas. I want to help but I can’t unless you tell me what you need.”

 

Panic and fear billowed around Cas and he fought to keep his composure. When he had it under control enough to be cognizant of the room again he realized John was in front of him, perched on the edge of the desk, his eyes reflecting something he didn’t recognize on John Winchester.

 

“Cas, can you tell me what’s wrong?” John asked, gentle and calm and that was all it to make Cas give in.

 

“Can you come with me today? I have to see my mother.” Cas looked down at his hands, How could he even be asking this?

 

“Of course I will. What time?”

 

Cas looked up, shock written over his face. John repeated his question and Cas still stared.

 

“Cas. I’m coming with you, okay?”

  
Cas nodded numbly. It would be okay, he told himself. He had Charlie, and now John. At least it was something.


	6. Dean

It was strange to drive up to his parents’ house and think of it as home again after living away for over three years, but there he was- pulling into the driveway to just the right spot so that his dad wouldn’t yell at him for “hogging the driveway”.

 

Dean grabbed his backpack out of the back seat and went in through the kitchen. No one was home yet, but they would be soon. He went up to his room. While he’d been with Cas the day before Sam had cleaned out all of Cas’s things so there were no reminders. Maybe also because he didn’t want to share a bed with his brother more than the one night.

 

The room felt empty still- he had shoved his stuff into a couple bags the day before and hadn’t put anything away. He put his backpack on the desk and pulled one of the textbooks out. He had made it through lectures that afternoon, but didn’t feel like he remembered anything. His mind was stuck in the house with Cas and all the things he had said the day before.

 

Walking away when he did had been the hardest fucking thing he’d ever done in his life. He still wasn’t sure how he did it except that he had been overwhelmed with the feeling that he had to get out of there before he broke all together. It was the right thing to put time and space between them while Cas was getting himself together. And Charlie and Benny were with him to help him out. Dean told himself Cas would be okay because of their housemates, but he still worried. It wasn’t the same-they didn’t know him like Dean did. They didn’t really know about Cas’s dad and how that might affect him.

 

He grabbed his notebook and a pen, determined to work through the lecture notes and the chapter covered that afternoon to figure out what he’d missed even though he was sitting right there. He started down the stairs, but slowed when he heard the kitchen door open and his mother talking.

 

“Cas asked you to go?” Mary asked.

 

“I was surprised too, but I’m glad I did,” John said. “Zachariah was there too and Cas wasn’t expecting that. But he made his case and they agreed to take care of everything. It was very different than the last time I went with him.”

 

“Do you think they’re changing their minds about him?”

 

“Naomi maybe, but Zachariah was just as stubborn. I think he just sees it as his responsibility to pay for Cas until he graduates. So Cas has an appointment later this week and I asked him to check in with me after.”

 

Dean decided to go ahead down the stairs and into the kitchen where they were talking.

 

“So he did make an appointment?” he asked.

 

John raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. “He did, but you’re not going to ask me about him. You ask Cas about Cas, okay?”

 

Dean rolled his eyes and turned to go to the living room.

 

“I’m serious, Dean. He’s had a lot of betrayal in his life and I won’t do that to him too. So you talk to him if you want to know.”

 

“Whatever.”

 

“Dean.”

 

There it was- the bark, the serious voice that made him shake when he was a kid and still made Dean turn back to his father now.

 

“I know you’re upset right now, but you still do the right thing.” John held him there with a stern glare until Dean nodded and went on to the living room.

 

Shit.

 

He sat, opened the text and went to work on the outline, eventually stretching out across the couch as he read and wrote. Sam showed up a short while later and forced his way onto the couch to study too, and just before dinner the doorbell rang.

 

Sam jumped up to get it and Dean was surprised to see Benny walk in.

 

“Hey, man. What’s up?”

 

“Just coming to see you.”

 

“Okay, well come on in.”

 

“Actually, I wanted to talk to Sam first if that’s alright.”

 

Sam looked confused and glanced at Dean but agreed and followed Benny out onto the front porch. They were conspiring and Dean knew it, but he didn’t actually care. All he wanted was for everything to stay as calm as possible so he could get into whatever his new normal was going to be. Sam and Benny returned just in time for Mary to call them to eat.

 

Every night that week Benny showed up around the same time Sam got home from school and the three of them would do homework together and then end up watching a movie or playing cards. Dean set the rest of his day to a routine too- up to run early, come back to shower and get ready- off to study groups and classes through the day, home to study a little more, then spend the evening with Sam and Benny. He poured himself into his school work that week and didn’t look up unless someone forced him to.

 

It was the running that was killing him. He could work through his whole day without thinking about Cas because he purposed to keep so busy, but that morning run started to become the worst part of his day because of how Cas crept into his head. Was he okay? Did his first appointment go well? There were all these things he couldn’t know- and if he called Cas to ask he knew his resolve would break. He didn’t really want to ask after him, either- he’d told Cas to have Charlie call him if he was going to let him know how he was doing, and no call yet.

 

He made it a week before he asked Charlie about him.

 

“He’s as well as can be expected, I guess.” She held her coffee cup with both hands to warm them. “I’m making sure he eats whenever I’m there. He’s going to class and work. He sees the therapist again this week.”

 

Dean took a sip of his coffee, but didn’t taste it. “Did he ask you to tell me anything?”

 

Charlie shook her head. “He’s not saying much of anything.”

 

Dean wavered between guilt and relief- Cas felt just as bad as he did, probably worse- and as soon as he thought it guilt won out. Cas was already in bad enough shape and maybe staying separated-

 

“Stop thinking that.”

 

Dean looked up at her. “What?”

 

“You need to take care of you and Cas needs to take care of Cas.”

 

“I don’t know, Charlie. If he needs me-”

 

She reached across the table for his arm and he stared at her hand laying there. “I know it’s bad right now, but I think you did the right thing.”

 

Did he? Sometimes he thought so, but sometimes- especially when he ran or when he couldn’t sleep at night it all seemed so very stupid.

 

“So what are you up to, Charlie?”

 

“Oh, you know- school and Cas mostly.” She looked back down into her coffee and smiled a little. “And I have a date.”

 

“Yeah? With who?

 

“Pamela Barnes.”

 

“Really?” Dean smiled. “She asked about you at the party, but I didn’t really think anything would come of it.”

 

“Yeah, well, it hasn’t been anything yet. We’re going out on Friday, so I guess we’ll see then.”

 

“She’s really great, Charlie. And you too, so I bet it goes pretty well.”

 

“That’s awfully nice of you.”

 

“Well it’s true.” Charlie sincerely was one of the best things to ever happen to him- and now to Cas. “Thank you for taking care of Cas.”

 

“He’s my friend too, Dean.”

 

“I know, but just- thank you.”

 

Charlie smiled fondly, but a little sadness in her eyes too. “You’re welcome.”

 

**************

 

He could tell from the second Benny walked in the door that he wasn’t planning to stay.

 

“Come out with me. Pamela’s having a thing at her place and we can go walk among the living for once.”

 

“Go ahead. I’m fine here.”

 

“Yeah- you’re fine. It’s only been a month of you staying home studying. Let’s go.”

 

“Benny-”

 

“Dean, go with the boy,” Mary called from the other room.

 

“Yeah- go with the boy, Dean.” Benny grinned at him and wagged his eyebrows.

 

“Oh, god… stop that.” Dean rolled his eyes, but he got up. “Let me change clothes.”

 

“Get real pretty, too!” Benny called as Dean went up the stairs.

 

“Shut up!”

 

*************

 

Dean’s body was vibrating even before they hit the door. The bass was up and the windows were practically rattling as they walked into the house and into a mass of people. Benny led the way and found a corner to park Dean while he went to get drinks. Dean stayed where Benny had placed him and didn’t really even look around him. It was awkward and almost painful to be around so many people having a good time, and by the time Benny returned Dean had convinced himself to tell Benny he needed to go.

 

“No. We’re staying at least an hour, even if all you do is sit there and mope.” Benny took a sip of his beer and then gestured with it into the crowd. “Go talk to someone or something. You probably have a class with someone here.”

 

That was true, but they weren’t necessarily people that were actually his friends. They were the people you say hi to and and ask how they did on the last exam, no one that actually knew him or would even know… so maybe that was perfect. Dean forced himself to say hi to a few people and after a little while didn’t feel nearly as out of place.

 

Pamela spotted Dean just as he saw her. Her lips slid into an easy smile and she forced a path to get to him. She leaned in to talk to him, yelling over the noise. “Didn’t think I’d see you here!”

 

“Didn’t plan to come.” Dean yelled back. He motioned to Benny and Pamela laughed.

 

“Getting you out of your cave?”

 

“Hey- I go everywhere I need to go.”

 

Pamela looked him over and shook her head. “You need to get out with people. I’m glad you’re here.”

 

“I talked to Charlie.”

 

Pamela’s eyes lit up. “What did she say?”

 

“Just that you have a date.” Dean grinned at her. It still felt a little disingenuous to be smiling when he felt so generally down, but it felt good too, like he was working his way back to himself. “She’s really great.”

 

“Well, I generally have good taste.” Pamela teased and Dean laughed with her. Again the alarm inside his head warned that it was wrong to laugh, but he felt better for it.

 

Dean started to ask about Pamela’s plans for the evening with Charlie, but just beyond her the door opened and he saw him. Cas had just come in, trailing after a dark-haired girl. He looked pale and maybe even thinner than he was before if that was possible, and when the girl turned back to him she stepped in close to speak in his ear. She spoke and Cas laughed and time slowed as Dean watched Cas lean in to say something in the girl’s ear, and she laughed too. Cas smiled deep at her response.

 

“Dean?”

 

He startled and looked Pamela in the eye.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“I- yeah.” His eyes darted back to Cas, who had leaned in to the girl and was saying something. Something else funny, it seemed, because she laughed and then took Cas’s hand and led him into another room.

 

“I need to go.” He said, most of his voice suddenly drained away. He pushed past everyone to get to the front door and outside where he might be able to breathe again. He tried to tell himself he was seeing something that wasn’t there. That Cas laughing and talking with someone was what was supposed to happen if he was getting back to normal. The flash of pain through him made Dean double over. It was too much. Seeing him happy or maybe just seeing him at all…

 

“Hey.” Benny sat next to him on the steps. “You okay?”

 

“No.”

 

“That’s Meg in there, by the way. April’s roommate that helped Cas out before.”

 

Dean nodded, but it didn’t really matter who she was. She was the one close to Cas, getting him back out there and making him laugh when that was exactly what Dean wanted to be doing.

 

“Is he really that happy? Have you and Charlie been covering for him?”

 

“Looks are never the whole story, Dean.”

 

“Yeah, but-”

 

“I live with him- he’s miserable. Maybe right now he’s trying to not be and maybe you should be doing the same.”

 

Dean hung his head and Benny sighed next to him. “Look- you can probably walk in there and get back together with him right this second but the same shit that made you break up in the first place will still be staring at you. You want to help him- I get that. You’ve always been the guy that gives everything to everyone else, and right now I’m gonna’ be the guy to keep you from doing that so you can get yourself back together.”

 

“He needs me, Benny.”

 

“He hurt you and it’s okay for you not to forget about that in the name of helping him. We all know Cas isn’t good right now, but Charlie’s got him and I’ve got you and it’s all good. Okay?”

 

“Benny-”

 

“That’s how it’s gonna’ be, Winchester. You might make it through me if you try hard enough, but you just try making it through Charlie.”

 

That got a laugh out of Dean and Benny bumped his shoulder against Dean’s. “You wanna’ go back in, or…?”

 

Dean glanced at him. The poor guy did look terribly concerned for him. “I think that was enough for the first time out.”

 

“But there will be a second?”

  
Dean didn’t really want to commit to anything else, but it had been good to be out of his parents’ house for awhile, and he probably needed more of that. The house blared behind them, the music barely held in by its walls, and Dean decided right then. “Yeah, there will. But not something like this. Something smaller. Less Cas.” 


	7. Cas

“I’m not really sure about this.” Cas sat hunched against the door in the front of Meg’s little toyota.

 

“It’s been scientifically proven that the longer you go without smiling the harder it is to do it the next time,” Meg said. “So you, sir, are going to smile.”

 

Cas shook his head and looked out the window. There was no way he could just smile again, and he’d tried to explain everything to Meg, but it was like she had a loop of “Fix Cas” going in her head that wouldn’t stop ever since they’d run into each other on campus less than a week after that terrible Saturday night when they’d first met. That first time they’d kind of nodded and shuffled past each other, but then they’d met again in line to get coffee and the sort of forced conversation that happens in deadly slow lines happened to them- except it didn’t seem so forced and they ended up sitting down together.

 

Charlie said it was good- Meg seemed nice and she took him out of the house to places other than school- and Cas relied heavily on her judgement. He couldn’t trust his own.

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“House party. Just music and booze. Probably some dancing and stuff, but we can just hang out. I’m meeting some friends and they’ll like you. Or stand alone and see if you can break the world record for being the grumpiest human ever at a party. Whatever. Just so long as you’re interacting with humans that aren’t me and Charlie and Benny.”

 

Cas snorted at that. “Sounds great.” He sighed heavily and rolled his eyes in exaggerated protest.

 

“That’s right- bitch and moan. I don’t care as long as you fake having a good time just as well.”

 

They could hear the party from the street, and it only got louder as they walked inside. Meg took the lead and Cas followed, mostly keeping his eyes on the back of her head. She scanned the room then motioned Cas down to her- “See?” She yelled to be heard over the music. “You are the grumpiest person in the room. Record achieved.” Cas laughed and he almost didn’t recognize the sound. It had been a very long time.

 

“So we can go now, right?” He aimed for an edge of humor and it must have worked enough to get Meg to laugh too.

 

“Yeah, right! All your weekly socialization needs were met in under a minute. Let’s at least wander through the place once, okay?”

 

“Okay, I just-” Cas leaned in again. “I don’t really feel very comfortable.”

 

“I hate to break it to you, Cas, but getting back out into the world after a big breakup isn’t comfortable work.” Meg smiled up at him, somewhat reassuring and offered her hand. “Stick with me.” Cas followed her. Maybe it would be okay. He didn’t know anyone here at all. Except-

 

He caught sight of Dean across the room, close to the corner talking with the same girl he’d been talking to at Benny’s birthday party. Cas turned back to follow Meg, who had pulled on his hand and went with her into the next room where her friends were waiting.

 

Meg introduced him around to everyone, but Cas wouldn’t remember any of their names. His heart was beating double time and he was trying to keep his focus on his breathing. Dean was here- had been here long enough that he was leaving now- maybe moving on somewhere else to continue his Friday night? He looked like he belonged there or at least wanted to be there.

 

Someone asked Cas about his major and when he’d graduate and he was able to pitch in to the conversation just enough for Meg’s friends to feel like he might fit in. As soon as he could, though, he dropped out of active participation and barely listened in as they talked back and forth, group in-jokes and familiar histories in play.

 

Dean had looked good- of course he would be pulled back together a month after the end to their relationship. Dean was the kind of guy that would always adapt and recover quickly- it was part of what had always mystified Cas about him. To be able to let the bad things roll off and come out unscathed was a talent Cas would never have, and he had depended on Dean when he had required those skills. No more, however, and Cas’s own abilities to adapt were withered with disuse.

 

He wasn’t going to ask Meg to leave, but she made excuses for them after awhile and led Cas out.

 

“Not bad for your first time back out,” She said when they got out into the cool air.

 

“I guess.”

 

“You’ll get to know people and it will get easier.”

 

Cas snorted at that. “I’m not good at making friends.”

 

Meg watched him a little too long for someone who was driving, but her eyes flicked back to the road before she spoke. “You make friends by talking to people. People you don’t know.”

 

“Dean was there.” He spit out the non sequitor before he could stop himself, but the fact was pressing on him and he couldn’t tamp it down any longer.

 

“Well, shit. Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“He was only there for a minute or two- he left just after we came in.”

 

“Then so what? Fuck him.”

 

“I just didn’t expect it.”

 

“You go to the same school with the same friend group. You’re going to bump into him and you have to learn to be ready for that.”

 

“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for that.”

 

*****************

 

Thursdays at the garage were different than all the other days. John spent his time actually out in the garage and aside from signing the paychecks when they came in from the payroll company he stayed out of the office as much as possible. Thursdays were Cas’s day to reorder the office after John had spent a week in there letting everything pile up and fall to chaos. Even when he came in on Tuesdays for a few hours it was mostly to get rid of junk mail and do the prep work for Thursday’s business of real sorting and filing.

 

He’d missed that Tuesday because of a necessary change with his therapist and while John had understood and even offered to still pay him for the hours, Cas was the one who was suffering from the lack of his usual schedule. The desk was in chaos and whole files were hanging out of the cabinet. At first he’d taken a deep breath and dived in, but as he found more and more pages that should have been in the same file in various places around the small office (and two pages with dried coffee rings on them) he became more and more aggravated.

 

All this time, he’d tried to get John to switch to a spreadsheet or some kind of software for small businesses, but he’d refused. He wanted something he could hold in his hand, and Cas had lost count of how many times John had agreed to keep things together better for Cas’s sake.

 

When the door popped open a little later he had already rehearsed the speech a dozen times, but it still came out more frustrated than he had intended.

 

“You know, putting all the records into the computer will not only save you time and money, it will keep me from sitting on my ass on your office floor once a week.”

 

“He’ll never change it, you know.” Cas looked up. Dean stood on the other side of the desk looking down on Cas’s dark head at his place on the floor amongst stacks of paper. The smile on his face faded the longer Cas stared.

 

Dean looked away and cleared his throat. “Sorry to bother you. Dad said I could come in to get my check early.”

 

Cas pushed up off the floor and grabbed the keys from his pocket. He unlocked the safe under the desk and pulled out the small stack of rubber banded envelopes. He flipped through until he found Dean’s and handed it over without looking. He couldn’t.

 

“Thanks.”

 

Cas nodded and made a show of restacking things and putting everything away, all the while hoping Dean would get the hint and leave. Between the lack of words and distrust for the ability of his own voice to maintain a semi-regular pitch he couldn’t risk saying anything.

 

“So, uh… are you doing okay?”

 

Cas tucked his head down, redoubling his efforts to look busy and encourage Dean to leave.

 

“I mean… school is good and-”

 

Cas slammed the door to the safe and spun the dial. “Can we not do this?” He couldn’t. Just the thought of talking with Dean was choking him up.

 

Cas didn’t look up to see him go, but after a few beats there was a shuffle of feet and the door pulled open and slammed closed. Cas bent his knees up in front of him and rested his forehead there, arms wrapped around his legs. That couldn’t have gone worse, and at the same time- it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. They weren’t  supposed to see each other or call or anything and for almost two months they had kept up with it aside from the accidental party encounter- and even that had really only been Cas seeing Dean.

 

It wasn’t fair at all that Dean had invaded like that, paycheck or not- he could have asked John to bring it home for him far more easily than driving over himself. Cas cleared his eyes and went back to work on the paperwork, rushing through to just get it done so he could abandon the small office the second John came back. While he worked resentment built and by the end of the day Cas was shoving paperwork places just to clear it from the desk. It would be a mess come Tuesday, and John might even have to call him to find stuff, but it was worth it for the ability to leave right away at six.

 

John came back to the office and Cas was out the door and down the sidewalk as soon as possible. He zipped up against the cold and jammed his hands into his pockets. He seethed all the way home, and by the time he got to the house he was practically out of his mind with rage.

 

Charlie and Benny were both in the living room when he tore in and slammed the door.

 

“Everything okay, Cas?” Charlie asked.

 

“Why don’t you ask Dean?” Cas practically snarled the words and didn’t even retract when he saw the surprised look on her face.

 

“What happened?”

 

“Oh, he’s just popping up everywhere I go. He showed up to work today- ON HIS DAY OFF- and tried to talk to me like nothing happened. Like we just talk now and everything is fine between us.”

 

“Dean knows it’s not,” Charlie said. “I don’t think he’d do that.”

 

“You know what? You weren’t there, Charlie.”

 

“You know how Dean is- he’s really good at acting more confident than he is.”

 

“You know what?” Cas started pacing back and forth like the words weren’t coming out fast enough and he had to burn off the excess energy somehow. “He didn’t have to come in to see me like that. He could have asked John to just bring him his damn paycheck and never set foot in the office today. And then like a week or two ago he was at the thing Meg took me to and he was just talking to people, walking around like everything was fine. And then he left like he was just going on to the next party and I just- I can’t be running into him out there. It’s already hard enough trying to manage all of this and I don’t need to see him out there flaunting his availability to everyone in town. I’m not stupid- he’s probably already seeing other people, but I shouldn’t have to-”

 

“You know what? Shut up, goddamn it.” Benny was on his feet with pointer finger jutted out at Cas like he might charge at any moment. Charlie was looking back and forth between the two of them awaiting the explosion.

 

“No one is going to deny how bad a time you’ve had, but I’m the one that’s over with Dean most nights and I either listen to him try to sort out how he could have fixed whatever went wrong between you two or else he’s so fucking quiet that I know I’m going to be talking him down within the hour. I had to practically lasso him and drag him to that party. You wanna know why he left so fast? He caught one look at you with Meg and had to get outside because seeing you again and thinking YOU fucking moved on just about killed him.”

 

“Benny-” Charlie tried to cut in, but he knocked her back with an angry glare before he turned his anger back on Cas.

 

“And fuck you for thinking Dean would move on past you in two fucking months. The week before you did your disappearing act he was looking at a ring for you. So fuck you, Cas. You’re one hell of a hard person to be friends with when you won’t even believe the people who are on your goddamn side. I can’t imagine how Dean feels right now if this is how shitty it feels to be your friend.”

 

Cas’s eyes were wide and unblinking as Benny pushed past him and called from halfway up the stairs that he was going to Andrea’s for the night.

 

“Cas,” Charlie got up and went to his side, but he stared past her, shock stealing away all expression.

 

“Is that true?” he asked when he finally found his tongue.

 

“Benny was way too hard-”

 

“Rings, Charlie. Oh god…”

 

A minute later the door slammed as Benny left and Cas was back at attention, this time on the couch and not recognizing how he got there.

 

“Cas, don’t listen to everything Benny said, okay?”

 

“But it’s true, isn’t it? Is he okay? He… he looked okay today.”

 

“He’s okay, Cas, he just- he’s had some low points, but he’ll be okay.”

 

 _Shit._ Cas hunched over on himself.

 

“Cas, come on. You didn’t say any of this to Dean. You didn’t hurt him worse than he’s already hurting. But you have got to listen to us. I’m not lying to you, Benny’s not lying to you- I mean, Benny was way more critical than he should have been, but-”

 

“No, he was right. I probably read the whole thing wrong with Dean earlier and- shit! Why can’t I…”

 

“Have you talked about this in therapy? Reading situations? Maybe how you’re talking to yourself after something happens?”

 

“I don’t know. Some.”

 

“So maybe talk about that this week.”

  
Cas nodded. Everything was numb now. Dean was gone, Benny just took off… at least Charlie was there for now. 


	8. Dean

Dean didn’t want to admit it, but finals week had crept up on him this time. He’d been studying but with scattered attention on his most focused nights and it was going to bite him in the ass. He made a point of scoping out a spot at the library early and staying put most of the day. He could study at home, but if he stayed there around the clock he’d get less done, so he parked himself at the library for several hours, took a break and then went home to spend the evening in his room or at the table reviewing what he’d focused on that day. His first exam hadn’t gone badly, but he wasn’t going to let up until the other three were over as well.

 

He and Pamela spent a morning quizzing each other for one exam and when Dean went to the library for his afternoon study session he found his usual seat in the back corner occupied, and pretty much everywhere that might actually be void of visual distraction. He found a table closer to the entrance and put in earbuds hoping something low key might be enough to keep himself focused despite all the people who never came to the library except on finals week.

 

He spread out what he could and reached back into his bag for a pen. When he came back up he was almost face to face with Cas and he froze.

 

“Hello, Dean.” Cas whispered. He pulled out the chair across from him and Dean stared. What was he supposed to say? He’d said about twenty-five words to Castiel in the garage office the week before and had essentially been pissed on for the attempt at courtesy. That day had confirmed whatever was murky about their status in Dean’s mind and since then he found it a little easier to stop thoughts of Cas as they came up.

 

“What are you doing?” Dean hissed.

 

“Apologizing for last week. At the garage.” Cas glanced at the librarian but the glares of the other students around them were actually more frightening.

 

“Okay. It’s fine.” Dean looked down into his books and willed Cas to get up and go, but he didn’t even shift in his seat. After a minute of fake studying he looked up and met Cas’s blue eyes.

 

“I need to study.”

 

Cas nodded. “I know. I’m really sorry though. Can we maybe-”

 

“No, you were right at the garage. We shouldn’t… I need some time, Cas.” Dean looked back down and this time resolved not to look up again until Cas left. Even if he was sorry it was too late and too much between them.

 

Benny had told him about yelling at Cas that night after the incident in the garage- that Cas could still only see his own side- not the olive branch Dean had been trying to extend. Dean may have been eventually able to write off the events of that afternoon to Cas being frustrated or tired or overwhelmed or whatever he was, but knowing how little he had thought of Dean afterwards was the cap on it all. Everything Dean had been thinking through and agonizing over was summed up to one thing now. Cas could see nothing but himself still and that attitude wasn’t looking to change any time soon. Dean was separate enough from it all at this point to stay back. No contact for now and maybe over time they could be in the same room with their mutual friends without losing their minds.

 

Cas finally pushed back and said a quiet “sorry” as he walked past. The breath Dean had been holding rushed out and he closed his eyes to try to seek some kind of focus again. There was so much to do before his next exam and this… he took a deep breath and started again from the beginning of his notes.

 

**********

 

Dean was used to his days and weeks without Cas now so he hadn’t expected just how hard Christmas was without Cas. They had had three Christmases together with Cas as part of the Winchester family. No one else said anything, but Dean could see that Cas’s absence affected them all. He kept quiet too and when Benny asked if he wanted to go out on the Friday night afternoon Christmas Dean jumped on the chance to get out of the house with somewhere to actually go.

 

They went to the Roadhouse. It was nothing but a few regulars, slow for a friday night. The student crowd was gone for the holidays, but that just meant the pool tables were actually free and Dean and Benny took turns shooting, taking trick shots and drinking slow.

 

“I’m moving in with Andrea next week.” Benny said after they’d played awhile.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I was practically living at her place even when you were still at the house, but after what happened with Cas and all I’ve been there most nights.”

 

“I’m really sorry that whole thing went down because of me.”

 

“Wasn’t because of you. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t stand up for you when I heard your name being slandered?”

 

Dean gave him a sharp look and Benny thrust both hands in the air. “I know you don’t want to talk about him, but I am not sorry for what happened when it comes to defending you.”

 

Dean shook his head and set up for another shot. The whole thing had been ugly it sounded like, and Benny hadn’t spoken to Cas since. “So you’re moving out. What are Charlie and Cas going to do?”

 

“I told Charlie to see if you wanted to do something with her.”

 

“What about Cas?”

 

It was Benny’s turn to give Dean the look, eyebrows raised and lips twisted in amusement. “Thought we weren’t talking about him.” When Dean didn’t give, Benny went back to lining up his shot. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

 

“I’m going to go get another round.” Dean abandoned his cue against the wall and took their empty bottles up to the counter. Ellen smiled at him. “Thanks for cleaning up. Another?”

 

“For both of us. Thanks.” He leaned against the counter while Ellen passed over new bottles. The door opened and a rush of cold air came with it. Cas and another guy came in, bundled against the wind and sat in one of the empty booths. Dean absently handed over his cash to Ellen and returned to Benny with the fresh bottles.

 

“We should go. Plenty of places we can go where he isn’t.”

 

“That’s over. I can go where I want and Cas can go where he wants.”

 

“The look on your face calls you a liar.”

 

“I didn’t say it wouldn’t be a challenge, but this is what I have to get used to, right?”

 

Benny shook his head and practically clucked his tongue at Dean. “You aren’t going to get past this until you start seeing someone else. Even if it’s just someone you go out with a couple times or whatever. You have to get out of post-relationship mode.”

 

“That is a crock of shit if I ever heard one.”

 

Benny laughed. “Has to be better than the torture you’re putting yourself through with all your efforts not to think about him.”

 

Dean glanced over at the table where Cas sat. The guy sitting across from him was shorter, but smiling and he was making Cas laugh a real laugh that everyone could hear even with music up.

 

“I’m not ready for something like that,” Dean said. “I just need to focus on school. I still have grad school after graduation and stuff. I have plenty to keep me busy.”

 

“What about happy? You’re a relationship guy, Dean.”

 

Dean snorted at that. No one would have called him that before Cas, so could you really be called a ‘relationship guy’ if you’d only had one real relationship? “Let’s just play.”

 

They settled back into a game and Dean tried to keep from sneaking glances at Cas. Cas leaning across the table as the talk with smiley guy turned a little more serious. Cas laughing again, and then- _shit._

 

“Hello, Dean.” There he was, bright eyes and smile right in front of Dean.

 

Dean stretched to his full height and forced a thin smile. “Hey, Cas.”

 

Benny sighed loudly and announced he was going to grab the next round.

 

“How are you?” Cas asked.

 

Dean busied himself racking balls in the most orderly fashion he’d ever admit to. “Great. You?”

 

“Uh, yeah. Just nothing to do here on a Friday night without the rest of the campus in town, you know?”

 

Dean nodded. So it wasn’t the worst conversation in the world, but he still didn’t want to do it. Especially not while Cas was on a fucking date.

 

“How’s Sam? I haven’t seen him in a long time.” Cas asked.

 

“You should call him. He’d probably meet up with you or something.”

 

“I have. Turns out you lose a lot of friends when you split up with someone.”

 

Dean met Cas’s eyes and immediately wished he hadn’t. Cas’s emotions were plain across his face- uneasiness, a little fear, and worst of all- hope.

 

“Look, Cas.”

 

“I know. I just want to be able to talk to you again. Just-”

 

Dean’s eyes welled and he pushed it down. He looked around- there was hardly anyone there to see it all, but he still grabbed Cas by the arm and pulled him to the back of the bar and down the little hall that led to the bathrooms.

 

“Look, Cas. We can’t- or maybe you can, but I can’t. I can’t talk to you and keep perspective. I  can’t be your friend and watch you be with someone else. I will never be able to do that.”

 

“Dean I’m not asking for that.”

 

“And I don’t think I can get back together with you either, okay? You went so far past untrustworthy and I can’t have it sitting in the corner, so…” Dean pushed one hand roughly through his hair so it stood up wildly. Words kept spilling out of him that he wasn’t sure he could stop. “I can’t even think about asking someone else out without practically having a break down, and that’s- that’s your fault. Just fucking move away when you graduate so I never have to see you again.”

 

Dean dared look back at him and didn’t take nearly as much satisfaction from the crushed look on Cas’s face as he thought he would.

 

“Hey, Cas. You-” Smiley guy appeared around the corner, but the smile quickly faded when he saw the look on Castiel’s face. “What the hell-”

 

“It’s fine, Gabe. We’ll settle up and go.” Cas’s eyes looked a little wild as he pushed past. “I’m sorry, Dean. I won’t be back here.”

 

Dean didn’t remember getting home after, and when he tried to crank himself out of bed the next morning he understood why. A LOT more alcohol had been consumed after the encounter in that hallway. Someone had set a bottle of water and a bottle of aspirin on his nightstand. He took the meds and drank as much of the water as he could force before going back to sleep. When he woke again it was because Sam was softly calling his name from the doorway.

 

“I’m fine. Go away.”

 

“Yeah, you’re fine because you’re in here. Dad, however, is not fine with this. At all. Just thought I’d warn you before he gets home from work.”

 

Dean covered his head with a pillow and went back to sleep. The next time he woke it was because John Winchester was pounding on his door.

 

“What the fuck,” Dean moaned.

 

“You get your fucking hungover ass out of bed, get yourself presentable, and join me downstairs.”

 

Dean did it, but not quickly. If he was going to die that afternoon he was going to die with a peppermint fresh mouth.

 

John sat in the living room in his chair, his elbows on his knees and head down until he heard Dean hit the bottom of the stairs. He motioned to the couch with his head and then looked back down at the floor.

 

“You want to tell me why you came home at three in the goddamn morning wrapped around Benny’s neck and drunker than I ever want to see out of you again?”

 

Dean swallowed hard and his mouth dried out completely under his father’s merciless stare.

 

“Um. I… uh...” he stammered, sure that if he could just get started he’d be able to get something acceptable out, except that he knew somewhere behind the hangover haze that there wasn’t going to be any version that would actually be acceptable to his father.

 

“Words, Dean.”

 

“I didn’t mean to.”

 

“Intent doesn’t mean a whole lot.”

 

“Um. I… Cas was there and I thought it was okay, but it wasn’t and- we kind of argued and I lost my temper. And after he left…” Dean ducked down and mumbled something about not caring anymore and Benny trying to stop him.

 

“Dean.”

 

He couldn’t bear to look at his father again. It was stupid and he knew it was stupid when he’d started, but he hadn’t cared. That was the part that his dad would berate him for. It was the part he wanted to kick himself over too.

 

“Dean, I know this is hard. I thought maybe by now some of it would have died down, but obviously not.”

 

“I don’t know why I can’t get around this.” Dean stared down at the carpet. He felt like an idiot and even worse after thinking through what he had said to Cas.

 

“Have you really decided anything about him yet?”

 

“I thought I had, but when I saw him last night… I don’t know.”

 

“So can you forgive him?”

 

Dean shrugged. He didn’t let himself think too hard about the precise details of what Cas had done.

 

“It’s time to figure that out. It’s been almost three months and I get it that it takes some time, but what I won’t have is you forgetting who you are.”

 

Dean laughed, dry and sarcastic. “I don’t think I drank _that_ much.”

 

“You listen to me.” John practically nailed him to the wall with his eyes, staring into Dean without saying a word until he felt like Dean was truly listening. “You are Dean Fucking Winchester and no one takes that away from you. You were never you because of him. You will never be you because of someone else.”

 

Dean flushed under the attention and dropped his eyes. “I know that.”

 

“Not with this behavior you don’t. It’s been almost three months you’ve lived here and Benny and Charlie have dragged you out a few times, but that’s it. You’ve had your time to mope. You need to get back to yourself.” John sighed.  “Benny told me last night Charlie needs someone to live with. You make that arrangement with her today. I love you, Dean, and you always have a place here, but you need to get out of my house.”

 

John smiled just slightly. “Of course I say that with all love and affection.”

 

Dean chuckled a little at that. “I really am sorry for coming home like that last night.”

 

“Yeah- don’t do that again.” John pushed himself up out of the chair and patted Dean’s shoulder on his way out of the room. “Call Charlie. Now.”

 

Dean did. He dialed her on his way up the stairs to his room and she answered on the third ring.

 

“Benny says you need a roommate.”

 

“God- yes!”

 

“I’m getting kicked out of my house, so when do you want to look for a place?”

 

“Wanna’ come over and look at ads with me? I’ve been looking ever since Cas said he was going. I figured Benny wouldn’t be far behind.”

 

“Where is Cas going?”

 

“I don’t know- this guy Gabe? I don’t know the whole story, but he’s known him a long time I guess. He didn’t really want to talk about it. Gabe seems nice though. Funny.”

 

“You met him?”

 

“Just for a few minutes when he comes to pick up Cas.”

 

“So is Cas…”

 

“No, he’s not here. He moved his stuff this morning, so just me.”

 

Dean agreed to be over as soon as he got ready and after a quick shower he was in the impala thankful for sunglasses.

 

It was strange being back at the little place he’d lived not three months earlier. He hadn’t been back since the Sunday morning he’d packed his stuff and left Cas in what had been their bedroom. He sat on the couch with Charlie. She had her laptop out and a list of places she had already made in a notebook between them.

 

“There are a few things for you to take- Cas said the bed is yours, so that can go with us.” Charlie smiled, trying to make it a positive even though she had mentioned Cas.

 

“I saw him last night.” Dean said.

 

“Cas?”

 

“Yeah. We didn’t… um, it didn’t go well. I really need to figure this out and Benny said he thought maybe if I go out a couple times, even just a couple one-time dates or something it might help me shake this thing.”

 

Charlie looked at him like she couldn’t believe what she just heard. “You’re going to shake off four years.”

 

“Well, you know what I mean.”

 

Charlie rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I guess, but poor verbiage. So do you have someone in mind?”

 

“No.”

 

“Okay, well- let me think okay? I’ll find you someone great. You just promise to try it.”

 

“I will- because I’m Dean Fucking Winchester,” he said and then laughed when she gave him crazy eyes.

 

**************************

 

Dean tried to think of exactly what to say the entire elevator ride up to the new apartment. She was going to ask and she was going to want details and if he didn’t give her enough she would push until he gave too much. It was fine, no- it was good. Aaron had been nice and shook Dean’s hand like he was genuinely glad to be there and not like Charlie had forced him into a blind date. They had talked about their families and and school and… he was really nice.

 

“So?” Charlie was practically at the door when she heard the key in the lock.

 

“It was good, Charlie. Good job.”

 

“Yeah?” Her eye brightened and she fist pumped the air. “I knew it! He is just the right amount of funny, and- he was funny right?”

 

“Yes. Really funny and very nice. We had a lot in common.” He took off his jacket and tossed it over the arm of the couch before sitting down.

 

“So are you going to see him again?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“What? Why?”

 

“I don’t know Charlie. There just wasn’t enough… something. I don’t know.”

 

“You should go out with him again. See if maybe the something shows up on the second date.” Charlie grinned bright, fake enthusiasm raising her eyebrows.

 

“Maybe, Charlie. I don’t know.”

 

“Okay.” She slumped onto the couch next to him. “Star Wars?”

 

“I’ll make the popcorn.”

 

Dean slid into their galley kitchen and put a bag in the microwave to pop. He leaned up against the counter, cell phone in hand. He glanced out at Charlie before texting.

 

**Can we talk?**

 

It was a long shot- for all he knew Cas had changed his number in the couple weeks since they’d run into each other at the bar. Maybe he and that Gabe guy were really together, maybe- his phone pinged and Dean could hardly check it for fear of what it might actually say.

  
_When?_


	9. Cas

Cas got to the coffee shop early. He had an absolutely ridiculous fear that he wouldn’t be there on time and Dean would think he stood him up and he’d leave and that would really be it. After the little interactions since the initial break up he had no idea what Dean wanted to say and was prepared for some kind of final goodbye. The conversation in the bar had morphed into a “never speak to me again” situation and Cas wasn’t eager to repeat that. But Dean wasn’t usually the yelling type and maybe since he’d initiated this whole thing…

 

No. He wasn’t going to imagine what was going on until he spoke to Dean. That had only gotten him in trouble before and it was the first pattern Chuck had talked to him about breaking. He was going to listen and ask questions and then decide what was really going on.

 

Cas heard the Impala before he saw it. He watched Dean park and walk in, hands jammed into his coat pockets. He looked around as soon as he got in the door and Cas caught his eye. He was hoping Dean would smile or something, but he just ducked his head and made his way straight to the table without going through the line.

 

“You aren’t going to order?” Cas asked.

 

Dean chuckled a little. “Too nervous, I guess.” he looked around as he sat down.

 

Cas nodded. He felt the same. They sat across from each other, both quiet until Dean spoke up.

 

“Are you settled in your new place?”

 

“Yeah. Pretty much. Gabe is still unpacking his stuff, but he’s kind of lazy about the whole process.”

 

Dean leaned back in his chair. “Charlie said you’ve known him a long time?”

 

It was part statement, part question and Cas frowned. “He’s my cousin. He came out here for a grad program.”

 

“Dude, I have never heard of you having a cousin Gabe.”

 

“He’s on my mom’s side and we didn’t really see them much growing up. He’s nice enough. A little weird.”

 

Dean nodded like he understood. “So you’re living with your cousin.”

 

Cas spun the half full mug in front of him. He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d expected, but this wasn’t it. “So why did you text me, Dean?”

 

“Um, well. Right.” Dean stared at the table, back around the shop, anywhere but at Cas until he finally settled on his own hands. “Well, mostly to apologize. I really didn’t mean what I said at Ellen’s when I saw you. I don’t need you to move or… it’s not your fault. I mean, we both did this. So, anyway. I never should have said that. I’m- I’m sorry.”

 

“Oh. Okay. Thank you. I’m sorry too. About the garage and everything. I wish I could pretty much erase the last six months completely. I know that doesn’t really change anything for us now, but, I want you to know that I see my part in all this.”

 

Dean nodded and licked his lips, concentration still on his fingers. “Are you- are you still doing the therapy thing?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I mean, you don’t have to tell me anything-”

 

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. Like, I’m in a really shitty mood the rest of that day, but it’s worth it. Chuck has helped a lot. There’s still a lot to figure out, but I’m handling things better. I have ways to work stuff out now.”

 

Dean smiled, real warmth covering the nerves. “That’s really good, Cas.”

 

“I’m sorry I didn’t get it together sooner.”

 

Dean started to sputter. “That’s not why I’m here-”

 

Cas shook his head. He knew now that Dean hadn’t come to blame him for anything. “I have things to say too, you know? And apologizing is part of that.”

 

“I really miss you.” Dean’s eyes were back to his hands and Cas pretended not to notice the tears in his eyes.

 

“Maybe we can talk sometimes. Stuff like this,” Cas said.

 

Dean nodded and smiled, sniffing a little. “Yeah. I’ll call you or something.”

 

***************

 

Cas got the first text the next day.

 

**Do you still go to bed early?**

 

_Yes._

It was random, but that’s what Dean asked, probably because it was 10 p.m. and Cas was in bed where Dean knew he would be. Cas wanted to follow up with something, maybe a weird question for Dean but he was too slow. Dean wrote back first.

 

**How are classes this semester?**

 

_Difficult, but better than last semester._

 

**Only two months to go**

 

_Then grad school._

 

**Don’t think about that right now. Think about being done with this.**

 

Cas didn’t respond for a while. None of this was what he had expected from his last semester of college. All the grad school things were finished up, all the applications and prep, all the craziness was over. Chuck had encouraged him through the process and helped him stay motivated. And when he was at his lowest he called Chuck- Cas hated having to reach out like that, but he had been sure the stress would kill him. But Chuck had pulled him back from that edge and helped him see the reality of his situation- the stress was temporary. And Chuck was right about that. Now without all the applications and acceptance worries hanging over his head he really could see clearly.

 

And this thing with Dean was… well, at least they could be friendly now.

 

_I’ll think about being done when I get my masters_

 

**Overacheiver**

 

Cas considered the first comment to jump into his head, hesitating before sending back: _slacker_

 

**I’ll have you know I got accepted to the bioengineering program.**

 

_Wow- that’s great!_

 

**Thanks**

 

_Bedtime_

 

**Right. Sorry**

 

_Not a problem_

 

Cas plugged in his charger and put the phone on his nightstand. He laid back, trying and failing not to think of Dean and how they might get back together. Maybe something dramatic, swept off his feet against a sunset sky…

 

Cas woke to a buzz on his phone.

 

**Running**

 

And then a second later the phone pinged again with a selfie of Dean in his running shoes, a t-shirt and shorts. He shot it at an angle from above with a really strange facial expression.

 

_What are your lips doing?_

 

**Posing**

 

_With duck lips?_

 

**That’s what all the cool kids do**

 

_Hmmmm_

 

**Okay really running now**

 

Cas lay back again and closed his eyes, but he knew there wouldn’t be any more sleep that morning. He got ready for the day- shower, shave, hair- and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. It didn’t mean anything. The texting. It can’t mean anything. He’s just lonely and we were best friends. Cas sighed.

 

He checked his school email, organized some papers and then another ping.

 

**What are you doing?**

 

_Prepping for classes._

 

**Oh- sorry for bothering.**

 

_not a bother_

 

Cas thought and went for it. It would be better to know now and quash the weird hope that had taken up residence in his chest. _What are we doing?_

 

**texting**

 

_You know what I mean_

 

Cas knew he did. He had to. And if he didn’t for some crazy reason then Cas had to stop him, because it was hurting in a way he hadn’t expected. He tried to sort out the wording and even started typing it in, refining and deleting as he went. The longer Dean didn’t respond the longer Cas’s message back got and just when he decided to go ahead and send it, Dean responded.

 

**I don’t know.**

**But is it okay?**

 

Cas erased his long message in favor of one word: _Yes_

 

***************

 

Charlie had a table saved when Cas got to the restaurant. They had a standing lunch date on Thursdays this semester because of how their classes fell and she gave Cas a ride to the garage for work afterwards.

 

“Hey. So I have a question.”

 

“Can I sit down first?” Cas teased. He hung his backpack over his chair and pulled it out to sit.

 

“It’s important and I’m pretty sure you’re going to say no, but I need you to say yes.”

 

“I don’t like the sound of this.”

 

“I’m going to start hosting movie nights again. We haven’t done it since we were all together at the house, and I want to do it again. So.” Charlie breathed in deep and smiled a little too wide in her efforts to convince him. “I want you to come. Bring your cousin.”

 

Cas pretended to be very interested in the menu. He always ordered the exact same thing, and he was pretty sure Charlie knew he was avoiding giving her an answer,  but he didn’t know what to say. Their waitress came and retrieved drink orders before she hustled off again.

 

“Who else is coming?” Cas asked.

 

“I’m inviting the usual people. Plus Pamela, of course.”

 

“Of course.” Cas smiled at her. “How’s that going?”

 

Charlie blushed a little. “Good. We’re figuring some things out, but yeah. I mean I’m looking for a job and might need to move wherever a job is and she’s going to go to a grad program in Chicago, so I don’t know.”

 

“Maybe you’ll get an offer in Chicago.”

 

“But do I really follow someone I’ve only been dating for a few months?”

 

Cas shrugged. “I guess it depends on if you think it’s the right thing to do.”

 

The waitress came back with their drinks and took their orders and the menu Cas was trying to hide behind.

 

“So who else is coming to the movie thing?” he asked.

 

“Pamela and Sam and Sam might bring someone. Dean and Benny and Andrea. You should bring Gabe.”

 

“Charlie,” Cas sighed. “The last time I talked to Benny was before Christmas when… that whole thing happened. And Dean-”

 

“That doesn’t mean we can’t watch movies together.”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Bring Gabe. Sit across the room from Dean and Benny. It will be fine.”

 

“I don’t-”

 

“Cas, please. We’re going to graduate soon and we won’t be able to do this anymore.” She looked a little tearful and Charlie never looked like that. Cas reached across the table for her hand.

 

“Okay. I’ll be there. Tell me what to bring and Gabe and I will be there.”

 

“Saturday, 4:00 and we’re going to do the Back to the Future trilogy. Bring snacks and snark.” Charlie smiled brightly, hope restored.

 

**************

 

Charlie dropped Cas off at the garage and he went to the office without checking in with John. When he peaked in John was under a car, fully engaged and Cas wouldn’t disturb him. He went into the little office and started sorting and filing paper. John was doing a better job of keeping organized but was still unwilling to go to an electronic system no matter how many times Cas told him about the money he would save just because he would no longer have to waste his time looking for the right paper- it would all be in one place and easy for others to navigate, but the idea of “the cloud” was just too foreign for John and he refused to try it.

 

Cas shuffled a few things around, sitting as he got his mind organized and ready to work. When John came in a few hours later he shuffled through the file cabinet for a moment before finally asking where a particular billing statement was. Cas got up to help him and the door opened behind them again.

 

“Oh, hey, Dean.” John said absently. “Checks are in the safe.”

 

Cas smiled at him, as me came around the desk, but Dean muttered a thanks and bent down in front of the small safe to get what he had come for. Cas found the information John was looking for and John walked out of the office muttering to himself.

 

“Everything okay?”

 

“Yeah. Fine.” Dean said, a little edge to his words that made Cas back off. Fine- if they weren’t really going to talk that was fine. Fine! Whatever…

 

“Can I help you?” Cas asked.

 

Dean chuckled and held up his check. “You can multiply this by ten. Or a hundred.” He put the rubberbanded paychecks back in the safe and locked it. He stood and went to the door before Cas realized he was leaving.

 

“Hey. Is everything okay?”

 

“Yeah, just… It’s fine. I’m picking up more hours here as soon as school is out. It’ll be fine.” Dean pulled the door open and started to leave, but turned back for a moment before closing the door. “Thanks for asking, Cas.”

 

“Of course.”

 

Dean went and Cas sat down behind the desk, mostly because he needed to sort out whether or not he’d said something foolish. He didn’t think so- not this time. And it was awkward, but not as awkward as Cas initially assumed it was going to be. He went back to work, arranging and sorting and then making notes for John that he would need over the weekend.

 

The door clicked open and Dean stepped in again. Cas looked up expectantly, but Dean just stood there, sort of shuffling around.

 

“Do you need something else?”

 

“What are you doing after this?” Dean asked a little too forcefully, and then he backed into the door.

 

Cas frowned. “Homework probably.”

 

“Do you wanna eat? I mean, can I take you somewhere to eat?”

 

Cas flushed. “Um… sure?”

 

“Okay. Let’s go.”

 

“I have another hour here.”

 

“I already asked my dad if you could come with me.”

 

Cas laughed. Of course Dean had asked his dad. Cas put away what he was working on, jotted a few more notes for John and then grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair. Dean watched him with a nervous smile.

 

Cas went to check with John and then followed Dean to the Impala. It had been months since he’d ridden in this car and he didn’t realize how much he missed it until he was sitting in the passenger seat once again, buckling in.

 

“Where to, Cas?”

 

“It was your idea. I thought you had a plan.”

 

Dean laughed. “I don’t, just… we both have to eat, right?”

 

Right. “Roadhouse?”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“We’ve had a million great conversations there. I think I can forget the one bad one.”

 

Dean turned his eyes on the steering wheel and pulled out. “I’m still really sorry about that.”

 

“I know. You don’t have to-”

 

“Yeah, I kind of do. I don’t think I’ll stop apologizing for that one for a long time.”

 

Cas looked straight out the windshield too. He wasn’t going to get his hopes up or even let himself think about what exactly Dean meant by “a long time.”

 

They pulled in to Ellen’s place and she took their order personally. The place wasn’t busy yet, and she didn’t hide her surprise at seeing the two of them together again.

 

“Getting some dinner, huh?” She asked.

 

“Yep.” Dean did his best to play it cool.

 

“The two of you. Together.”

 

“Don’t go hopping on the phone to my mom, Ellen. It’s just dinner.”

 

“Right.” Ellen glanced at Cas then back to Dean. “Just dinner. I’ll put this in and come back in a bit with your ‘just dinner’.”

 

Dean apologized when she walked away and Cas stopped him with a laugh. “Why are you apologizing? I know how she is.”

 

“I know, just-”

 

“Dean.” Cas waited until Dean looked up before he continued. Dean was hard pressed to keep his eyes focused on Cas, but when he did it Cas spoke again. “What are we doing?”

 

“I don’t know, Cas. I just… I left that office and even drove off, but,” he paused for a moment, worrying the napkin in his hands. “I had to come back.”

 

“Why?”

 

Dean took a deep breath and his eyes darted to the corner of the booth- anywhere but Cas. He let the air out and let out a small sad laugh. “I don’t know. I guess I hate the idea that we’re done. And if you tell me that’s how it is I’ll leave you alone, but I- I kind of think we should be friends at least and-”

 

“Okay.”

 

Dean looked up at Cas, his eyes bright. “Okay? Just like that?”

 

“I’m the one that was an idiot, so the fact that you are willing to even talk to me is amazing.”

 

“I did stupid stuff too, Cas.”

 

Cas played with his water glass, sliding back and forth in the trail of its own condensation. “Your stupid stuff is easy to get over. Mine- not so much.”

 

“Cas-”

 

“I know what I did was wrong and broke your trust and that I can’t get that back. So.. what we’re doing here- I can’t. Not if you think you can’t trust me ever again. Like, not even friends, Dean. I just can’t do that with you.”

 

Ellen appeared with their food and they both thanked her softly, but when she left neither one touched their plate.

 

“So you’re saying that if I can’t get past that you don’t even want to be friends?”

 

Cas looked down. “I’m saying that I can’t. You’re too important to me. Being your friend while knowing you didn’t really trust me would be really hard and I don’t think I can do it.”

 

Dean looked back at the table, nodding slowly. “I get that.”

 

They both picked at their food for awhile until Dean spoke up again.

 

“But if I can, Cas? Would you? Do you think we can do this again?”

 

“Do what exactly, Dean?”

 

Dean chuckled. “I don’t know yet. I talked with my dad some and you know he has good advice, but I’m still thinking.”

 

“So I guess let me know when you make a decision.”

 

“I will.”

 

Dean drove him home and when he opened the apartment door Gabe was standing there, arms crossed over his chest.

 

“Was that a certain Impala driven by a certain person?”

 

“Yes it was.”

 

“How the hell did that happen?”

  
“I don’t know,” Cas said. That seemed to be the theme of the night.


	10. Cas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: quick mention of past childhood abuse. Nothing graphic is laid out, it is just a quick mention referencing what we already know from previous installments in this 'verse.

The first movie for movie night was starting in five minutes and Cas was still waiting on Gabe. He paced a little longer and checked his hair again in the mirror before yelling.

 

“Gabe. Gabriel!”

 

“Relax, man.” Gabe poked his head out of the bathroom. “The movie isn’t going anywhere.”

 

“You don’t know my friends. Movies are a very serious business. Let’s go.” Cas grabbed the keys to Gabe’s car and threw Gabe’s coat in the general direction of the bathroom before he walked out, not really caring if Gabe caught up at this point. He’d just steal his car.

 

“They haven’t been your friends in months, by the way.”

 

“Shut up, Gabe.” Cas reached the car ahead of his cousin and wrenched open the driver side door, staring right into Gabe’s eyes when he made sounds of dissent. “I’m driving. Get in or go back upstairs.”

 

“I’m coming,” Gabe grumbled. “Even if it’s just to keep you from being stupid.”

 

“What am I doing that’s stupid?”

 

“Are you kidding me? This Dean thing is going to bite you on the ass.”

 

“There’s no Dean thing. We’re just talking again.”

 

“That’s not what your face said when he dropped you off the other day.”

 

“You know what? Fuck you, Gabe.” Cas turned at an intersection. He kept his eyes on the road and away from his cousin’s traitorous face.

 

“Fuck me? Fuck Dean! He left you alone when you needed-”

 

“Shut your goddamn mouth! You don’t know anything about it.”

 

“I know enough. And I know how you were when I came out here.”

 

Cas pressed his lips together. There wasn’t much he could say to that, but things were different now. Gabe just didn’t know because Cas wasn’t talking about it. There was no way for him to talk about it without also saying that he wanted to get back together with Dean and that was something he absolutely couldn’t talk about yet. Cas pulled up to Charlie and Dean’s apartment building and parked on the street. He got out and went up the building without waiting for Gabe, but Gabe caught up by the time someone buzzed him in.

 

“You’re late,” Charlie teased when she opened the door, but wiped the smile from her face when Cas glared at Gabe. “But it’s totally okay. Grab a seat.”

 

The couch and recliner were taken already, but the floor was open and Cas sat in the first empty space he could find, Gabe next to him. Sam had stretched his long body out across the floor- was he **still** growing?- and next to him sat a girl with dark brown hair. She was watching the movie just as intently as Sam and she rubbed a hand absently over his back. Benny and Andrea were sharing the recliner and Charlie, Pamela and Dean had the couch.

 

Dean caught Cas’s eye as he glanced back and nudged Cas with his knee. Cas turned back forward, his face blazing unexpectedly. He felt a shuffle behind him and Dean was suddenly over his shoulder. “Lean back.”

 

Dean had moved enough to give Cas a spot to lean against, but when Cas did all he could think about was how close Dean’s leg was to his shoulder. He spent so much of the movie hyper-aware of the space he was maintaining between him and Dean that he didn’t really participate in the comments and jokes everyone was making throughout the film. Gabe even got a few quick ones in that automatically endeared him to the group.

 

Someone buzzed their door right as the movie was ending and Charlie jumped up to grab it. Sam pushed himself up to sitting and smiled at Cas.

 

“Hey, man. Long time.”

 

“Yeah,” Cas wasn’t sure what else to say, but at least Sam seemed happy to see him.

 

“Uh, this is Jess.” Sam jerked his head toward her and she laughed.

 

“Nice intro,” she said, and extended a hand to Cas. “What’s your name?”

 

“This is Cas. You’ll get to know him quick enough,” Dean said behind him and Cas turned enough to look at him.

 

“Pizza’s here, guys!” Charlie called from the kitchen and everyone made their way that direction except for Cas. He was rooted in position, partly by numb butt from sitting on the floor so long and partly by Dean’s words.

 

Dean sat back down on the couch while he waited for the tiny kitchen to clear. “Are you coming in?”

 

“Maybe when they all come back out. Seven people crowded in a galley kitchen is ridiculous.”

 

Dean laughed. “Agreed.” He glanced to the kitchen. “I guess the siren song of pizza is too strong.”

 

Sam and Jess came out first, followed by Charlie and Pamela so Dean stood up. He reached down to Cas, and it took Cas a moment to realize what he was doing before he took the offered hand. He thanked Dean quietly and followed him into the kitchen after Andrea and Benny had made their way out too, leaving Gabe.

 

“So you’re Gabe.” Dean said.

 

“That’s what my friends call me.” He didn’t look at Dean as he poured himself a soda.

 

Dean’s eyebrow quirked and he looked to Cas who shrugged.

 

“Okay, well, I’m Dean.”

 

“I’ve been calling you senor Impala for months now, but Dean is probably better.”

 

Dean chuckled. “Okay, um- you can take my spot on the couch if you want. You know, being a guest and all.”

 

“My ass thanks you, sir.” Gabe ducked his head in a mock bow, nearly spilling his food in the process, but he made it out in one piece.

 

“So that’s my cousin…” Cas said as he grabbed a paper plate.

 

“He’s a real riot.”

 

“Something like that.” Cas loaded his plate up and poured a drink while Dean followed suit.

 

“You weren’t really saying much out there.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“During the movie. You always have great things to say. You should speak up.”

 

“I don’t know. I was nervous.”

 

“What? Why?”

 

Cas rolled his eyes. “Oh I don’t know- probably because the last time most of these people spoke to me it was to tell me how shitty I was or to not even talk to me at all.”

 

“Cas-”

 

“No, it’s okay. I know I was… anyway. I’m just nervous. At least Sam was glad to see me. And Jess seems nice.”

 

“She is. And Sam has really missed you.”

 

Cas swallowed and looked down, nodding. God, he had missed that kid, too.

 

Hey! Get your asses out here! You’re ruining movie night!”

 

Dean smiled, his cheeks flooding with color.

 

They went out to sit on the floor, everyone basically in the same places as before, but with more food. Dean insisted Cas resume the spot where he could lean up against the couch as they watched. There was more space between them down there and Cas was able to relax and get into the second movie a little more easily than the first one.

 

Part way through Dean got up to get a drink and when he came back he resettled close enough to Cas that their shoulders were touching.

 

“What did I miss?” He whispered.

 

Cas pushed himself up to sit a little straighter. “Not much,” he whispered back. “What are you doing?”

 

Dean smiled a little. “I don’t know. Is it okay? Are we…”

 

A big shhhhhh!!! came from Sam across the room and Dean threw a wadded up paper napkin at his head. He smiled back at Cas with the sideways smile Cas loved and shrugged. He put his attention back on the movie.

 

Cas leaned back against the couch again and this time he was the one that touched Dean.

 

By the time the movie finished, neither Dean or Cas were participating in the group commentary- they were next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, exchanging looks and occasional words.

 

“Popcorn!” Charlie called as she jumped up from the couch.

 

“How is she so tiny?” Gabe asked.

 

“Great mystery of life, dude.” Dean said from the floor.

 

“She eats more than either of us,” Cas agreed.

 

People got up to stretch and use the bathroom or to grab some popcorn, but Cas and Dean sat until Dean motioned to the door with his elbow. “Wanna step out for a minute?”

 

“Yeah.” Cas smiled.

 

The second the door closed behind them, Dean said, “Cas, will you go out with me?”

 

Cas closed his eyes and shook his head. “What?”

 

“I- I don’t know. Will you?”

 

“Dean, what are you doing?” Cas asked softly. He forced even breaths and opened his eyes when he felt calm.

 

“I was going to wait, you know- make sure, but I can’t.”

 

“But why? What I did to you was-”

 

“That’s over.” Dean looked him straight in the eye. “It’s all- you’re working through stuff, and I had time to think. And I talked to my dad. He said if I was going to get back together with you I couldn’t do it if what happened was unforgiveable to me- if it was just going to be part of our relationship forever. But I’ve been thinking so much about this. And-”

 

Dean breathed in deep and for a few moments Cas wasn’t sure he was going to continue, especially after he looked up at the hall ceiling.

 

“Dean?” Cas finally asked.

 

“What’s unforgiveable to me is not being with you, Cas.” Dean looked at him full in the face then and Cas swallowed hard.

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“Please can we be together again? Or just go out for awhile and see? Whatever you want.”

 

Cas’s head felt suddenly full and all he could hear was his heart pounding as he watched Dean in front of him, his earnest face full of emotion.

 

“I’m bad for you.” Cas said softly.

 

“No. Cas, no- we are good for each other. All that stuff was- I wasn’t doing stuff you needed and you got turned around. I see that now, and I’m sorry I didn’t see it before.”

 

“No, Dean- I hurt you too much.”

 

“I’m over it. And if you are too we can be together.”

 

Cas stepped back and hit the doorknob with his back. “So I say yes, and we… what? We’re boyfriends again?”

 

“Yes- or just dating if you want to go slow again.” Dean stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, suddenly kind of shy. “Whatever you want and if you don’t want to....” he didn’t finish his sentence and Cas didn’t want him to.

 

“Yes,” Cas said.

 

Dean’s face lit up and a grin spread on his face. “Okay. Can I-” he started, but Cas was already there kissing him.

 

Dean wrapped his arms around him and Castiel was overwhelmed by how new kissing Dean felt but at the same time his arms were every comfort he used to love. He pulled back and blushed. “I’m sorry, I-”

 

“Why?” Dean brushed a thumb over his cheek and kissed him lightly, a quick peck. “It’s okay with me if it’s okay with you.”

 

Cas nodded and they kissed again.

 

********************

 

They were late to the start of the third movie, but there were only a few boos thrown their way and no one seemed all that suspicious of their absence. Cas wasn’t sure he wanted anyone else to know yet- at least, not until he and Dean were a little more sure themselves of exactly what was going on. They sat close again though and Dean threaded their hands together between them.

 

Cas’s phone rang in his pocket and a giant chorus of disappointment rained down on him as he rushed to silence it. He didn’t look to see who it was until after he had ignored the call. It was his mother, and his anxiety rose when he thought about how she might react to him missing a call from her. They had been getting along better over the months since he had gone to her about requiring therapy, but their relationship still was not close and she did not like to think that her son might be screening her calls. He left the phone in his lap, determined to call her back later and he relaxed again next to Dean.

 

As anxious as the situation made him, the decision in the hallway was a relief in a lot of ways. He had been fighting to push down his hopes that he might get back together with Dean and now they would give it a try. And if things didn’t go well this time they would know- they wouldn’t have to wonder whether or not they had missed an opportunity. They were taking that chance now. They would see where it went and from there they could have closure if it turned out poorly.

 

Cas’s phone rang again, this time on silent. He pushed himself up and went out the door to the hall he’d been in with Dean not long before.

 

“Hello, mother.”

 

“Castiel.” She sounded wrong, fragile.

 

“What happened?”

 

“Your father.” Cas heard every breath of hers through the phone as she breathed broken.

 

“What’s wrong? What did he do?” Cas’s voice went deeper, darker and he leaned back against the wall. He had turned on her finally, he was sure of it.

 

“We are at the hospital. Please meet us. It was a heart attack.”

 

Cas slid down the wall to sit. He wasn’t sure what to say.

 

“Castiel, you need to come in case he wakes up again. Maybe the two of you can…” She was crying again and Cas was still without words.

 

“Okay.” He finally said. “Text me a room number.”

 

“Come quickly.” She said and hung up.

 

“Everything okay?” Dean’s voice snapped him out of his paralysis. Cas jerked his head to look up at Dean.

 

“No. My father had a heart attack.”

 

Dean dropped to his knees in an instant. “Let’s go. Come on.” He pulled Cas up to standing, then left him dazed in the hall. He came back with keys and their jackets followed closely by Gabe. Cas didn’t move to follow so Dean grabbed his hand and pulled him along to the elevator and all the way out to the Impala.

 

They drove in silence all the way there, Cas only vaguely aware of the process. He knew Dean was speeding and that he was on the phone with someone- Charlie? and then they were parking by the ER and Dean was running him in. Dean spoke to someone and led him along and Cas followed like a lost puppy. Dean gripped him tight as they walked and Cas was grateful for something to hold him down to earth.

 

“Castiel.” His mother put her arms around him and Dean released him. Cas settled a hand on his mother’s back and patted awkwardly.

 

“Can we go in?”

 

“Not now.” She released Cas and wrung her hands in front of her body. “He may not come out of this.”

 

Cas felt his body sag and Dean was right there to hold onto him, supporting him with an arm around the waist. He led him to a bench close by and made him sit. Gabe was suddenly there too, but then Cas thought back and realized he’d been with them the whole way.

 

It was too much- on one hand he felt entirely detached from the situation. His father was the man that had abused him physically and mentally throughout his childhood, had kicked him out after Cas told him he was gay, and had virtually ignored his existence ever since aside from paying Cas’s tuition at Naomi’s insistence. On the other hand, he was overwhelmed with emotion, and had no idea what to latch on to- anger? Fear? Worry? Was sadness even in there? It felt something like that and Cas thought vaguely that he should probably be sadder.

 

“Cas, you can go in.” Dean was in front of him and Cas focused on him. Dean was there. With him.

 

“Come with me,” Cas searched his face with tear-filled eyes. “Please.”

 

Dean looked up at Naomi and she hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

 

Cas used Dean’s hand as leverage up and followed his mother into the room, holding Dean tight.

 

His father lay still in the bed, looking so much older and smaller than he had ever appeared to Cas before. He was covered in tubes and wires and the blankets were tucked up firmly around him. The nurse looked at them all like she expected the family to rush to his side for comfort, but she didn’t know that they weren’t that kind of family. Naomi did eventually take a seat by his side but Cas stayed back, clinging to Dean. He watched her take his father’s hand and speak to him like he could hear her and none of it made sense.

 

“Am I supposed to say something?” he muttered.

 

“If you want to, I guess.” Dean said.

 

“I don’t have anything to say.”

 

“Then don’t.”

 

Cas met Dean’s eyes and believed him. They stood back together and after awhile they pulled up chairs to wait. Cas sat up stiff until Dean forced him to relax against his shoulder. Machines beeped evenly and air pushed through, but it wasn’t enough. Those same machines went crazy and Cas and Dean and Naomi all found themselves pushed back and out as the room filled with medical staff. Cas curled into Dean in the hall and Dean put his arms around him like a shield.

 

Cas knew before the doctor came out that his last chance with his father had passed, and when he heard the words he went numb. Dean held him up, held him tight and refused to let him go as his legs went loose and his mind swam.

 

“I’m sorry, Cas.” Dean was saying against his hair when he came back to himself, and Cas squeezed Dean tighter in recognition of his words.

 

“My mother,” He said softly and turned to her. She sat quiet on the bench, not a tear down her cheeks and Cas sat next to her. He didn’t know what to say, or if there even were any words he could say that would fit and be true. He wasn’t really sorry, he wasn’t really sad. It was more that reality as a whole had shifted and he didn’t yet know where he stood in comparison.

 

Cas sat next to her as she said nothing until he realized she also had nothing to say to him. He put a hand on her shoulder and said, “let me know what I need to do, but I think I have to go home.”

 

Naomi nodded. “Please take care, Castiel.”

 

Cas stood and Dean was there again. Cas started walking, but realized suddenly that he had no idea where he was. Dean had gotten them there. Dean put his arm around Cas’s shoulders and led him to the elevator.

 

They found the ER waiting room and Cas was shocked to see so many people there- Gabe, John, Mary, Sam, Charlie, and even Benny, all waiting for them. Dean was the one to tell them because Cas couldn’t speak. They moved around him, encircling him like he’d never stepped away from their lives, and for the first time Cas really understood _family_.


	11. Dean

He drove with his hand on Cas’s knee the whole way to the apartment. Cas leaned against the passenger door frame, eyes focused somewhere beyond the window. He hadn’t said anything since the ICU when he’d told his mother that he had to leave. Gabe was ahead of them in his car to guide the way to the apartment Dean had never been to.

 

It had been almost twelve hours since Cas and Gabe showed up for the movie night, a little over six since they’d decided to get back together in the tiny hallway outside Dean’s place, and a little over two since Cas’s father had passed away in the hospital. The emotional spin on the day left Dean reeling, so Cas had to be- what? Devastated? There weren’t adequate words for such a condition.

 

Gabe parked and got out, motioning Dean to park on the side of the building they had marked for guests. He squeezed Cas’s knee. “We’re here,” he said, but Cas didn’t move.

 

Dean got out and went around to Cas’s side to retrieve him. He opened the door carefully and reached to unbuckle him. Cas startled and looked up at him like he hadn’t seen him in months.

 

“Dean.”

 

“Yeah, I’m here, Cas.” Dean helped him out of the car and they walked in together. Gabe held the door for them and on their floor unlocked the apartment. Dean walked right in, arm around Cas. He was going to get him settled, get him to bed and be back in the morning. Gabe would be with him until then.

 

“Let’s get you some sleep, okay?

 

“Are you staying?” Cas asked suddenly.

 

“Um, no. I was going to get you settled and then-”

 

Cas’s face fell. “You won’t…? Please, Dean.”

 

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

 

Gabe slapped him on the back, and while it was made to look like a friendly gesture, it was too hard to really be that. “Of course it’s a good idea. Don’t be a douchebag.”

 

“I’m not-” Dean started.

 

“He’s not-” Cas said too and then sheepishly looked down. “Okay. If you think… and if it doesn’t mean that you changed your mind about… us.”

 

“Of course not.” Dean pulled him in for a hug, but Cas was stiff against him. Dean buried his face in Cas’s hair. “Cas, I just want to do this right,” he said softly. “What do you need?”

 

“I don’t want to be alone.”

 

Dean nodded against him, and kissed the side of his head before he let him go. “Okay. Pajamas and then bed.”

 

“I don’t think I can sleep.” Cas said, but he turned and led Dean to his room. It was small and undecorated, but the clothes neatly folded in his drawers were exactly the ones Dean remembered. He wasn’t sure what he had expected to find instead; Cas wasn’t exactly a clothes horse. Cas tossed a pair of pajama pants his way and Dean turned his back to change out of his jeans. It was all still too new to be back to normal and at the same time small things like this just didn’t matter in the wake of Cas losing his father.

 

Dean sat down on the bed and folded his jeans. Cas stood there looking lost again. “what do you want to do, Cas?”

 

“Couch, I think. I don’t want to sleep.”

 

Dean pulled the comforter off Cas’s bed and took it out with them. Hopefully Cas would at least sleep a little. It was already after 4 a.m. with sunrise not far off. He sat first and Cas settled into his side, curling his knees up. Dean spread the blanket over them and put his arm around Cas. Gabe had turned out almost all of the lights when he went to bed except for the small one above the kitchen sink. The kitchen and living room weren’t really separate so the living room had enough light to see Cas’s face.

 

Dean breathed deep, hoping he would know what to say or do. Should he try to get Cas to talk, or should he make him sleep? Cas settled it for him.

 

“I need to call Chuck in the morning and make an appointment.” Cas said.

 

“That’s a good idea.”

 

“I don’t know what to think. I should probably be more upset.”

 

“You seem the right amount of upset to me.”

 

“Is there a right amount? Like if he loved me I would probably be more upset. If he had even spoken to me more than once a year since I graduated high school. Maybe if I was better-”

 

“Don’t start down that road, Cas. You know you didn’t do anything to deserve what he did to you. He was a messed up guy.”

 

“But he was my father.”

 

That was true. Zachariah Milton had been Cas’s father in name and blood, but he had never cared for him like a father beyond being sure he was clothed and paid for in the ways that reflected on the family. That Cas felt anything but peace over his passing was amazing.

 

“You can feel however you feel, Cas. I don’t think there’s a right way to do this.”

 

Cas shifted against him and he gripped the front of Dean’s t-shirt. A damp spot was developing on his chest under Cas’s eyes. Dean ran his fingers slowly through Cas’s hair, letting each section fall as it wanted before he started again.

 

“I thought we might eventually be able to talk to each other. Like, when I finished school and started my professional career. Maybe he would respect that and then we could talk.”

 

“Do you really think he would have done that?”

 

Cas shrugged against him. “I don’t know. Probably not. When I went to them to tell them about needing to start therapy he asked if my “gay thing was done”, so…”

 

“Because you just stop being gay?”

 

“I guess.” Cas sniffed. “I just want to be okay, Dean. I don’t want anything out of the ordinary- I just want to be okay.”

 

“You will be. We’ll see if we can get you in with Chuck tomorrow and I’ll stay with you as much as I can. We need to notify the school too so you can get a break from classes.”

 

“Oh shit…” Cas moaned.

 

“Don’t worry- it’s okay. They have policies for this stuff and professors are generally pretty understanding about a death in the family. I’ll help get it arranged, okay?”

 

Cas nodded against him. “Thank you. You don’t have to do any of this.”

 

“I need to, Cas.” Dean continued to run his fingers through Cas’s hair, even after Cas had fully relaxed and given in to sleep. Before Cas showed up for the movie Dean had imagined how the night would go- that he would say yes to seeing him again, that over the next week they would meet up once or twice for coffee or to study together as they had hundreds of times over the previous years. Helping to plan a funeral had been nowhere on the list of possibilities. Dean had planned for low-key reentry into each other’s lives, but this was full throttle and some part of him was extremely thankful that they wouldn’t have to tiptoe as long, feeling out the new lines in the relationship. Dean vaguely thought about the need to be careful they didn’t fall into old patterns, but for some reason didn’t think it would be a problem. When Dean had initially asked Cas to start dating him again, it had partially been impulse- talking with Cas again, being in the same space, doing old things- he just couldn’t wait as long as he’d planned. And when Cas agreed it felt like everything fell into place. It was suddenly easy and right.

 

But then Dean had taken over the situation. Cas had never been good at handling an emergency so Dean had done what Cas couldn’t when the call came. He navigated, asked questions, got him where he needed to go. He had stayed. He stayed with Cas in a room with a man who had hated Dean for his very relationship to Cas, who wanted nothing to do with him, and he watched Cas try to decide how to be in that same space. Zachariah controlled the room even from unconsciousness as the years he spent trying to shape his son into the man he had always wanted came back on Cas in a way Dean hadn’t anticipated. Four years with barely a word between them, and STILL his father’s influence tore at him one last time.

 

Watching the indecision and confusion on Cas’s face as his father lay dying was painful, but it confirmed one very important thing for Dean. He wanted to be with Cas more than anything, no matter what that meant. The impulsivity earlier in the night was made clear. This was where he wanted to be always. There was nothing to say or do in that moment except to hold Cas tight, and he’d continue to do the same now.

 

****************

 

Dean woke up crooked and sore a little later. The sun was just starting to come up, but there was no way he was up for the day and he certainly wasn’t going to stay squished up on the couch with Cas if he wanted to be able to move later in the day. Cas was mostly stretched out and snoring lightly against him. Dean shifted enough to get his back a little straightened out, but he knew he needed to wake Cas and get him into his bed if he was going to get any decent sleep.

 

“Hey. Cas.” Dean shook him gently and Cas barely opened his eyes. “Come to bed.”

 

Cas sat up, eyes still closed and yawned wide. Dean collected the comforter and led Cas to the bedroom, still mostly asleep himself. Cas laid down immediately and cuddled into the comforter when Dean laid it over him. His hair stuck out everywhere and with the relaxation of sleep the stress of the past days and months was gone. He was Cas again, the boy Dean had fallen in love with almost five years earlier. He leaned to kiss him and Cas shifted.

 

“Are you going?” Cas whispered, eyes still closed.

 

“Just out to the couch,” Dean whispered in his ear.

 

“Stay with me.” Cas reached out and captured him around the neck, keeping him close.

 

“Cas-”

 

“Please.” It was small but sincere word, and it played on all of Dean’s sympathies. He gave in and laid down behind him, holding Cas close and breathing him in. It was so different and yet all the same as before. This is what he’d missed so long- just being with Cas.

 

Dean dozed, but was never able to really get back to sleep. He got up when he heard Gabe out in the living room and hit the bathroom before making his way out there. Gabe was leaning into the fridge and glanced up when he caught a glimpse of Dean out of the corner of his eye.

 

“Already back in his bed, huh, douchebag?”

 

“It’s not like that, Gabe.”

 

Gabriel shrugged and went to the pantry to check out the goods there. “I know. I just like calling you names.”

 

Dean laughed wryly and shook his head. “What the hell is your deal?”

 

“I don’t know. Still trying to figure out why the hell you’re back together with my cousin.” Gabe was pulling boxes out and putting them back, searching for an unknown item.

 

“What does that mean?” Dean tensed up. He’d had maybe four hours of broken sleep and he wasn’t really prepared for Gabe to attack.

 

“Well you broke up with him for good reasons however many months ago and now it’s all just forgiven?” Gabe set a box of cereal on the counter and went back to the fridge.  
  


“It’s been five months, and yeah, it’s forgiven, but we’re both different now.”

 

“How do you know that? You haven’t really spent time with him lately. And yeah- maybe he’s managing the depression better right now, but what if six months from now Cas gets depressed again and you dump him again because he can’t see straight?”

 

“It won’t happen.” Dean said firmly. There was no way he was going to let this get in the way of being with Cas again.

 

“Then you don’t understand that Cas hasn’t changed. This is going to happen again and you-”

 

“I know what to do now. I wasn’t holding up my end either. It wasn’t all Cas’s fault. I missed a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have missed, but I know better now.”

 

“So you’re ready for him to go off the deep end at any moment. Like right now because his dad just fucking died.”

 

Dean cringed at the words and Gabe’s harsh voice. “I’m going to be real honest for a moment and say that you and I have said maybe ten words to each other before now and I’m not really appreciating the tone.”

 

“Appreciate it or not. He’s my cousin and I’m not going to let him get his heart broken while he’s too vulnerable to see what’s really going on.”

 

Dean closed his eyes, partly to ignore Gabe and partly to keep from ripping his throat out. He was right to defend Cas. Gabe didn’t know him- in fact, he probably only knew three months of Cas’s opinion about Dean post-breakup.

 

“Listen, dude- I’m not an idiot,” Dean started. “I love Cas. I have loved Cas for a long time. That didn’t stop because of what happened between us last October. That was a- a fucking wakeup call. For both of us, I think. I’m not going to lose him again, not because we argue, not because he gets depressed, not because that homophobic abusive asshole died and fucked Cas up again one last time. So whatever you have to say, fine. I’ll take it. But I’m not going anywhere- not because of any of that shit, or because of you.”

 

“Good. Eggs?” Gabe grinned as he held out the carton.

 

“What?” Dean blinked. That was all?

 

“Breakfast. Eggs?”

 

“Um, sure.”

 

“You start the coffee. How long are we going to let Cas sleep?”

 

“Um… as long as we can.” Dean went to work getting the coffee pot going then took a seat at the kitchen counter.

 

“I called my parents when everything happened last night,” Gabe said. “They’re getting a flight to Kansas City this morning so I’ll need to go get them at some point. Aunt Naomi is expecting me at her place sometime this morning to help her get things together.”

 

There was a shuffle behind them and Dean turned to see Cas, eyes still mostly closed and dark hair standing in tufts all over. God, he had missed that.

 

“Is there coffee?” Cas croaked.

 

“Almost.” Dean jumped up and led Cas to a seat then went to retrieve mugs for as soon as the coffee had finished percolating.

 

“What’s going on?”

 

“We were just talking about going to see your mom today,” Dean said gently.

 

Cas nodded and leaned against him. “I need to call Chuck. After coffee.”

 

“After coffee,” Dean agreed and kissed the top of his head.

 

*******************

 

It was a Sunday morning and Chuck didn’t usually work with patients on Sundays, but he had insisted on seeing Cas right away. Gabriel went on to Naomi’s house to help her while Dean drove Cas to Chuck’s, and when they pulled up Chuck was just unlocking the front door to the office.

 

He was a little older than Dean had expected with a little gray at his temples, but his eyes were kind and crinkled like he spent a lot of time happy. That was exactly what Cas needed. Chuck opened the door to both of them and welcomed Dean warmly before asking if he planned to wait for Cas.

 

“Of course.” Dean said, and Chuck handed him the remote to the little tv in the waiting area. Dean didn’t turn it on when Chuck and Cas disappeared into Chuck’s office. Instead he called his dad.

 

“Hey, Dad.”

 

“Hey. Are you with Cas?”

 

Dean started to pace the small waiting area. He needed to do something. “Actually at his therapist’s office right now. He just went in.”

 

“That’s probably for the best. Your idea or his?”

 

“His. It was the first thing he said when I got him home.”

 

‘Okay. I’m heading over to his mother’s house soon. I’m going to see if I can help with anything there.”

 

“Gabe will be there but he’ll have to leave sometime to get his parents at the airport..”

 

“He seems nice. Funny kid.”

 

“Something like that,” Dean mumbled.

 

“So what do you need, Son?”

 

Dean rubbed the back of his neck. There was too much to say and not the right words to say it. “Um, I don’t know. I just wanted to call. And um, thanks for coming to the hospital for Cas last night.”

 

“Of course.” John’s voice softened into quiet conern. “Is he doing alright?”

 

“As well as can be expected, I guess.” Dean went quiet, trying to decide if he could tell his dad, or even if he should.

 

“Dean, what’s on your mind?”

 

Dean took a deep breath. He would go for it and see what happened. They wanted to keep it quiet for awhile, but with everything that happened…

 

“Dean? Is everything okay?”

 

“Cas and I got back together.” He said it in a rush, then stood quiet for a moment trying to gather the other words he needed. “It was before this happened, I mean. Last night a group of us got together for movies and he and I talked and decided to start dating again. And now...”

 

‘It will be okay, Dean. You’ll have time to talk and work things out after this is all over. Right now just do what Cas needs.”

 

“Okay.” Dean let out a breath and sat, letting his body relax a little into the chair. “I just-”

 

“Dean, just do what he needs you to do right now. Don’t worry about anything else. I assume you’re coming to Naomi’s after this?”

 

“Yeah. I don’t know how long we’ll be here, but I can text you when we’re done.”

 

“Okay. I’ll see you boys later.”

 

“Okay, Dad.”

 

Dean sat in silence for awhile, then he texted Charlie and Benny updates and left a message for his advisor to see if he could find out where to start on Cas’s behalf to let the university know about the death.

 

Dean didn’t look up from his phone until he heard the door open, and when he did he was surprised to see Chuck in the doorway.

 

“Hey, Dean. Would you mind coming in with us for a few minutes?”

 

“Um, sure? Is Cas okay?”

 

“Yeah! Yeah- definitely. I just wanted to talk with you too if I could for a few minutes and then I’ll let you guys get out of here.”

 

Dean followed him in and Cas smiled faintly at him from the couch. Chuck gestured for Dean to sit next to Cas and he did, rubbing his palms against his thighs. The office was painted a warm beige and the requisite bookcases lined one wall loaded up with books of all sizes. Chuck took a seat in an armchair opposite of them, and smiled at Dean.

 

“So you’re Dean. I’m Chuck Shurley and I’ve been working with Cas for several months now. Thank you for being there for him in this situation. He really needed you.”

 

“Of course.” Dean glanced at Cas, who kept his eyes focused on a spot on the floor in front of him.

 

“I was wondering what the plan is for the day. Cas wasn’t sure.”

 

“I’m driving him to his mom’s in a little bit. His cousin is over there now trying to help out and my dad is there.”

 

Cas’s head popped up. “He is?”

 

“Yeah. I just talked to him a little bit ago. Um, other than that I’m not really sure. I guess we’re going to help make funeral arrangements.”

 

“Okay. Cas, how are you feeling now?”

 

“Fine, I guess. I’m not really sure what to do.”

 

He really did look lost. Dean took his hand and Cas looked down at their fingers entwined. “We’ll figure it out when we get there,” Dean said.

 

“Cas, can you plan to tell John and Dean what you need? And plan to call me whenever you need to? I’ll make myself available to you no matter the time.”

 

Cas nodded, his eyes still on his and Dean’s hands. Dean squeezed tight and a tear went down Cas’s face. Dean turned full to him and pulled him close, completely ignoring Chuck. “Come on, Cas. You’re not doing this alone. Me and Dad and Charlie and Chuck here- and everyone else too. Let me help.”

 

Cas nodded against him, but didn’t lift his dark head.

 

Dean bent close, his lips just above Cas’s ear. “What do you need, Cas?”

 

“Just don’t let go. Not yet.”

 

“I’m not going anywhere, Cas. Never again.”

 

Cas nodded against him again, but didn’t move. Dean looked to Chuck. His lips were pressed into a thin smile and he lifted his eyebrows in encouragement. “So you know who to talk to, right, Cas?”

 

“Yeah.” Cas pushed himself up with a sniff. The kleenex box was already next to him and he took advantage of it. Chuck stood up and Dean took the hint. He stood up too and waited for Cas to get himself together. Chuck put a hand on Dean’s shoulder.

 

“Thanks again, Dean.” He handed Dean a card with his number. “In case you need to get ahold of me. Cas has my numbers too, but just in case. And let me know when the funeral is going to be held. I’ll do my best to be there.”

 

Cas stood up and thanked Chuck. “I’ll try not to bother you-”

 

“You call me if you need me. Don’t worry about if it’s right or not- if you need to call just call.”

 

Cas nodded vaguely and started to the door. Dean and Chuck followed, Chuck locking up behind them. He held Dean at the door to the building.

 

“I’m serious about calling me, Dean. Anytime.”

 

Dean nodded. “I got it. Thanks.”

 

Cas rode quietly to Naomi’s. When they turned into the neighborhood, Dean spoke up. “I’m going to park at mom and dad’s and we can walk across. Or I can drop you at the door before I park.”

 

“I want to stay with you.”

 

Dean reached for Cas’s knee. “I’m not going anywhere, Cas.”

 

“I know. I just don’t want to be alone.”

 

Dean parked and took Cas’s hand before they left the driveway. If he needed to be close, if he needed to know Dean wasn’t going anywhere, he would be right there with him every step of the way. Cas hesitated outside the door. Dean could see his father and Naomi talking through the window.

 

“Dad’s in there.”

 

“I know.”

 

“What are you worried about, Cas?”

 

Cas swallowed and took a deep breath before he spoke “I haven’t been inside this house since… since he kicked me out.”

 

Dean put an arm around his shoulders. “You and your mother have been talking lately. You can do this.”

 

Cas’s eyes darted back and forth from the front door to the windows. “Okay. Okay. Let’s go in.” He knocked, and the door opened promptly, John’s kind smile greeting them.

 

“Hi, Cas.” John opened the door wide and Dean had never been so glad to see his father.

 

***********

 

Zachariah Milton’s passing was a big event. For the visitation Cas wore a suit that his mother bought for him, and a tie that Dean picked out. He stood next to his mother shaking hands with his parents’ colleagues and making eye contact with Dean across the room every chance he could. Dean made sure Cas had something to eat when the flow of visitors slowed, and when it was all over Dean took him home and hung the suit in the closet while Cas climbed into bed, wiped out from the day. Dean took his place behind Cas, tucking in around him at every bend, pressing his hand against Cas’s heart as Cas lay still. His heartbeat was too fast for how still he was, but as Dean settled his head with his nose against Cas’s neck, Cas sighed and put a hand over Dean’s. His heart slowed a little.

 

“I’m glad you’re here.”

 

“Good. I want to be here with you.”

 

“You don’t think this is all weird?”

 

“Do you?”

 

“I don’t know. I thought we’d… I don’t know. Date. Like actually date again but instead you’re in my bed and we’ve spent the last however many days together.”

 

“I thought about that too. But I’m kind of glad we get to skip some of the nervousness.”

 

Cas rolled to lay flat on his back and Dean adjusted too, leaving his hand on Cas’s chest.

 

“We still have things to work out,” Cas said after he stared at the ceiling for a while.

 

“I know,” Dean answered softly. This wasn’t what he wanted from this time together. He wanted to lay together and hold Cas close and be glad they were together again. But if Cas needed to talk they would talk.

 

“I couldn’t have done all this without you. And John. He’s done so much for my mother.”

 

“We like to help,” Dean said. “And I’m glad to do this for you.”

 

Cas looked at him then, his eyes dark in the dim light of the bedroom. But he stared straight at Dean and Dean smiled. “I forgot how much you stare.”

 

Cas laughed a little, the first laugh Dean had heard in ages from him. “Only at you, I think.”

 

Dean brought his hand up to trace Cas’s jaw. “I like it.”

 

Cas smiled again, a genuine smile that Dean hadn’t seen in days. He kissed Cas lightly, then again, tongue tracing slowly over lips. He waited for Cas to deepen it, to be sure it was something Cas wanted at this moment. He pushed his hands deep into Cas’s hair, pulling gently but firmly and Cas whimpered against him. Dean pulled back and leaned his forehead to Cas.

 

“I missed you so much,” Dean said.

 

Cas leaned up to catch his mouth again, nipping at his lips. “Dean...” he breathed heavy and brought a hand to Dean’s chest.

 

“What, Cas? Just say it.”

 

“I want… I want to say a lot of things. But tonight... just kiss me?”

 

Dean kissed him again, hands back to Cas’s hair.

 

***************

 

The funeral morning was bright and Cas and Dean were back in their suits and ties. They rode with Cas’s mother to the parish church and they were halfway there when Naomi asked where Dean planned to sit.

 

“With me.” Cas said without taking his eyes off the window.

 

“Castiel, I’ve made room for this… development and allowed quite a bit. But not in mass.”

 

“Mother-”

 

“Can I sit with my family in the row behind?” Dean offered, trying to keep the peace.

 

Naomi looked at him, obviously surprised by the offer.

 

“That way I can still be close.”

 

“Can he stand with me at the gravesite?” Cas asked.

 

Naomi fixed her gaze on the back of the driver’s head just beyond Dean and Cas.

 

“Yes. And your solution will work, Dean. Thank you.”

 

When they arrived Dean was careful to keep a respectable distance and he sat directly behind Cas through the service next to his father. The mass was long, but soon all that was left was to go to the gravesite and attend the short service there. They rode quietly with Naomi again to the gravesite and when they got out Cas grabbed his hand on the walk up the small hill and over to where his father would be laid to rest. Cas didn’t let go throughout the prayers and comforts uttered there. He did everything he was expected to do as Zachariah’s only child, but he held Dean throughout.

 

Most everyone cleared out right away after it was over, but Cas stayed next to his mother and Dean next to him. John, Mary and Sam were the last to leave. John demanded a hug from both boys and so did Mary, murmuring words of comfort to both of them. She took Naomi’s hands and asked her to please come to the house for lunch and to stay as long as she would like.

 

They rode quietly again with Naomi and when they had nearly reached home, Naomi spoke.

 

“I want you to be prepared for the reading of the will.”

 

“I already know, mother.” Cas said. He stiffened next to Dean, preparing for the fight. “He made it clear that I would inherit nothing.”

 

Naomi kept her cold stare focused forward. “I have a meeting with the lawyer tomorrow.”

 

Cas shook his head. “You know, I don’t care about the money. This whole thing was never about the money.”

 

“I know.” Naomi’s face wavered, but she kept her eyes focused away from her son. “Castiel, we had never planned for this. How to manage this. You.”

 

“I was never a thing to manage.”

 

“Castiel-”

 

“No, I get it. It’s over now. He’s gone and there’s no changing what happened between us. I’ve made my peace with it. Actually, it was one of the first things I talked to Chuck about.” Cas looked at Dean. “Followed by you.” he smiled faintly before he looked back at his mother. “I’ll be fine. I have people who love me.” His voice wavered on the first few words, but after that it came out strong.

 

Naomi’s mouth twitched and she dropped her gaze down to the hands in her lap. “I know you do. I only hope someday you’ll include me there.”

 

Dean felt everything about Cas change. He sat up a little straighter and moved enough to be shoulder to shoulder with Dean. He knocked his knee over against Dean’s too, and a ripple of warmth popped up through Dean. He put an arm around Castiel’s shoulders.

 

“We’ll keep talking,” Cas said. “Maybe we can work things out.”

  
“Maybe,” Naomi said, eyes still distant.


	12. Cas/Dean/Cas

“These will be the last ones until Dean gets here.” Cas picked up his box and waited for Gabe to moan and complain like he usually did when it came to anything even remotely resembling hard work.

 

“God, this is heavy.” Gabe complained, as he lifted one of Cas’s boxes.

 

Cas laughed. “It’s books. Of course it’s heavy.”

 

“Why do you have so many books?” Gabe groaned as they left the apartment. Cas pulled the door closed behind them and followed him down with his own box.

 

“Because I’m educated. Keep walking.”

 

Gabe huffed down the stairs and out to his car. The boxes they carried filled the back seat, but Dean would get there soon and they’d be able to bring the rest of it out to the Impala’s giant trunk. Cas leaned up against the car for a moment, wiping sweat off his forehead. August in Kansas is fucking hot and Cas was a little concerned for his sanity over willingly moving all of his stuff in the middle of the hottest month of the year.

 

“Go back up?” Gabe asked. “We can at least cool off a little before your boy gets here.”

 

Cas checked the time. They had at least 15 minutes, maybe later if Dean didn’t get out of the garage right on time. That happened frequently these days. He followed Gabe inside and Gabe hit the up button on the elevator.

 

“What happened to using the stairs? Getting exercise?”

 

“I just hauled six boxes of textbooks down the stairs in the middle of a fucking heat wave. I think my exercise requirements have been met.”

 

The elevator door dinged open and they stepped in. “I still don’t get why you’re moving,” Gabe said.

 

“Are you kidding me?” Cas frowned. They had been planning the move from the moment Charlie announced that she was going to follow Pamela to Chicago and “see what happened”. She had moved out the previous weekend and Cas was practically living with Dean anyway, so it just made sense.

 

“Who’s the better roommate? Seriously?”

 

“I lived with Dean for a long time before I lived with you. I think I know what I’m getting into.”

 

“Yeah- that ended so well last time.”

 

Cas glared at him. The door opened on the elevator and Cas stormed out, down the hall and into the apartment, practically slamming the door in Gabe’s face.

 

“Hey, now-”

 

“Shut up, Gabe.”

 

“Make me. I don’t think you should do this and I’m not going to stop saying it.”

 

“Your opinion has been noted and ignored over and over again.” Cas got some ice from the fridge and filled a glass of water. “We’ve been together again for five months. Is that not long enough? Is that not enough proof that we’re doing well and better than before?”

 

“Okay, so you’re doing fine right now and therapy is great and all, but what if he bails when you hit another low point? What do you do then?”

 

“I can’t even believe you’re saying this to me right now. We are literally moving my stuff **today** and you’re picking right now to complain.”

 

“That asshole kicked you to the curb when you needed him most, and I don’t know why you expect me to forgive that. I don’t know why **you** are forgiving that.”

 

“I was the one that broke us up. I did everything I could to push him away. I said ridiculous and hurtful things to make sure he stayed away. If you want to be mad at someone for how miserable I was, be mad at me. I’m the asshole, okay?” Cas was shaking by the time he finished, and he set the glass down hard on the counter. “If you haven’t seen what kind of person Dean is over the last five months you never will, so just shut up until you know what you’re talking about.”

 

Cas went to his room and slammed the door, ignoring his cousin’s halting apologies.

Gabe had been voicing his disagreement for a few weeks, softly and only very occasionally at first, but as the moving date drew closer he had become more vocal. He never really said much in front of Dean though, and that was maybe what Cas disliked the most about the situation. He wasn’t really sure where Gabe had gotten the idea that the breakup had been Dean’s fault- he knew he had never referred to it that way, but maybe Gabe had closed some gaps in the story imaginatively, or he felt that he had to devoutly protect his cousin from his ex no matter the actual story?

 

Whatever the reason it was a shitty thing to do to both him and Dean, and Cas was glad to be getting away from it. Gabe was a good friend in general- maybe a little too good in the protectiveness department, but he was also aggressive in a way that Cas found appalling.

Cas laid back on his bed, just trying to cool off and get the conversation with Gabe out of his head. Dean would be there soon, they’d clear out the remaining boxes in his room and that would be that. He and Dean would be living together again, just the two of them. It hadn’t been just the two of them since their freshman year in the dorm, and even then Benny and Charlie always seemed to be there. This time was different though. The decision to move in together again had been a long conversation with Dean and then a follow-up conversation with Chuck, because Cas was anxious, but it was all good now.

 

Except that it really wasn’t. Cas pushed up off the bed and went back out to the living room, grabbed Gabe’s car keys off the table and called, “I have to go” over his shoulder as he left.

 

*************

DEAN

*************

 

Dean pulled up to Cas’s place 30 minutes late. He was so filthy when he got done at the garage that he ran home to take a shower real quick. He wanted to take Cas out to a celebratory dinner after they got everything moved over and he didn’t want to be covered in grease when they went. He pocketed his keys and took the stairs up two at a time. He knocked when he got there, then tried the door and it opened.

 

“Hey guys. Ready to finish up?”

 

Gabriel stood up when he saw Dean, wiping his hands on his jeans. “Uh, hi, Dean.”

 

“Hey. Everything packed? Where’s Cas?”

 

“About that. He, um… well, he took the car.”

 

“He already took some stuff over?”

 

“No. Um. He and I were… talking. And I said some things and he left.”

 

Dean’s whole body went tense. “What did you say? Where did he go?”

 

“Uh… so this isn’t easy, okay? I was not happy that he was moving in with you and I… proclaimed that fact and...”

 

“god- just say it, Gabe.”

 

“Well, first- I’m sorry I’ve been rude and- well, generally awful to you. I didn’t know what Cas did. I mean, he obviously wasn’t thinking clearly when he dumped you, but I didn’t know it was him and I didn’t know how he hurt you.”

 

Dean closed his eyes, trying to keep from losing his temper. Apologies could wait, but finding Cas couldn’t.

 

“Gabe,, what did you say to Cas?”  
  


“I told him I was worried you’d leave him again and then he told me what he did and went to his room. And then out of nowhere he grabbed my keys and took my car.”

 

“Do you know where he went?”

 

Gabe shrugged his slumping shoulders. He did look sorry, but that wouldn’t help Cas right at that moment. “I have no idea. He just said he had to go.”

 

“I’m going to go track him down.”

 

“Dean, I’m sorry.”

 

“Save your apologies for Cas,” Dean said and slammed the door on the way out.

 

He didn’t realize how shaky he was until he closed the door to the Impala and put his hands on the wheel. Dean made himself take a deep breath before he put the car in drive. He had to be calm about this. Cas wouldn’t do anything stupid, he wasn’t in that place. But he was obviously upset- where would he go?

 

Dean headed back to his apartment on the chance Cas went looking for him, but Gabe’s beat up blue taurus wasn’t parked anywhere close. He drove around campus just on the chance that Cas might have returned there, but he realized quickly that Cas had run before and he knew where he might be.

 

Gabe’s car was parked at the top of the hill where the skating pond was and Dean pulled in next to it. He could see Cas on the bench from where he was parked, but he couldn’t bring himself to get out for a moment. This was a difficult place now- Dean hadn’t been there since the previous October when he and Cas had met accidentally in that place and Cas had broken everything off. He hadn’t planned to ever go back, but here they were, Cas sitting on the bench where Dean had first helped him tie on skates in 12th grade, where they had kissed, where so many good things had been and then the one bad evening that had cancelled it all out.

 

When Dean finally opened the door, he wasn’t sure what would happen, what Cas was thinking and as much as he kept telling himself not to, he was partially back to that night in October when Cas had thrown them away.

 

*************

CAS

*************

 

They say that time heals all wounds, but grief is the difficult exception. Cas waited for the grief over his father to fade, but it merely changed over time, Mostly he didn’t think about his father and there was no guilt or remorse hanging over his head. But the scar left from their relationship reared its ugly head whenever Cas felt low. Chuck helped- he taught Cas what to say back to the words in his head, what to say when it felt like Zachariah was right there in the room judging and berating, and mostly Cas won the arguments these days. But there were still the days when he and Dean argued, Cas spitting out bitingly sarcastic and hurtful words on his down days, and then there were the days where he said nothing because he couldn’t, and the days when he felt stuck on broken.

 

After the funeral it was easy to deal- most everyone Cas knew at school had heard about his father passing and most didn’t know the relationship they’d had so they assumed they had been close. Cas had been given a wide berth and that had helped. He made it to graduation about six weeks after Zachariah passed and walking to receive his diploma was the first time he felt guilt over his father’s death. If he would have tried earlier to reconcile, if he would have at least conceded not to live with Dean and be out so publicly. Maybe that would have-

 

 _No. Stop. Wrong line of thought._ Cas corrected back, breathing in deep. The water was still today with no wind and it was still blazing hot even though he was in the shade. He sat staring, his brain too full of the day, but all of it pointing to one question. Why?

 

He heard the Impala and then nothing when Dean cut the engine. No sound of the door opening and closing, no foot steps. He must see him and doesn’t want to get out. _He came because he had to,_ Cas thought. _I stole Gabe’s car so he couldn’t come after me, so Dean came._

 

After a few minutes he heard the door and the footsteps and when Dean was close Cas said, “Hello, Dean.” without turning around.

 

Dean sat next to him, heavy on the bench but not close to Cas. “Hey. What’s going on?” Dean was gentle with the question, but Cas knew he meant it harder.

 

“I had to leave. Gabe was insufferable.”

 

“I get that. He’s not my favorite dude either.”

 

There was no love lost between Gabe and Dean. Cas wondered how much of that was his fault for not clearing things up with Gabe earlier. Maybe Dean and Gabe would have ended up the best of friends if he would have realized sooner and spoken up.

 

“Cas, are you okay?”

 

Cas could feel Dean’s eyes all over him, examining him visually for clues of distress. Cas mentally understood why he was doing, but couldn’t justify it emotionally.

 

“I’m fine,” he snapped. “I’m just the asshole who hurts you over and over.”

 

“No, you’re not. You’re my Cas.”

 

Cas tried to keep himself together- calm the shake, push down the ill feeling in his stomach and don’t cry.

 

“Why are you doing this?” Cas asked and he watched Dean pull back from him. “You shouldn’t let me move in. How do you know I won’t leave you?”

 

“Will you?”

 

Cas swallowed. “No.” It was terrifying to say it out loud, but it was true.

 

“Is that what you’re worried about? That all that will happen again?” Dean scooted closer and put an arm around Cas’s shoulders.

 

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Cas sucked in air to try to prevent tears. This was meant to be a good day and he was ruining it. He sat there breathing and Dean was calm and quiet next to him.

 

“I want to be the one you lean on.” Dean said after a while. “I’m good at that. Please let me do that for you.”

 

Cas didn’t know what to say. This was the topic they always circled around and never actually discussed. That would require him to admit how much he needed Dean and it was too much to say out loud.

 

“You don’t have to move in.” Dean asked. “I do want you to, but if you think we shouldn’t yet I’m totally okay-”

 

“No, Dean. I just… I was talking with Gabe and all the old stuff came up again.”

 

“Your cousin is kind of a jackass.”

 

Cas smiled a little and Dean tightened his hold on him.

 

“So did you come here to relive it all?” Dean asked it softly, but it clawed at Cas all the same. Cas pushed down all the negative that tried to spill out and chose to remember that Dean wanted good things for him. Cared for him. He really wanted to know why he was there.

 

“I came here to remember ice skating with you.”

 

When Cas looked over, Dean was grinning and a light blush covered his cheeks. He reached up and turned Cas’s face to see him more clearly. He kissed him lightly and Cas closed his eyes.

 

“Cas, it won’t happen again,” Dean said, his voice gone deep. “You’re doing really great with Chuck and you’re handling things really well when they come up. I know what to look for now and... anyway, besides all that- it’s you and me. We’ll figure it out together. Please don’t ever doubt that.”

 

Cas moved until his forehead was against Dean’s. He didn’t want to open his eyes. This felt right, alone together like this- but he knew they’d have to step out into the world every day and away from the little life they’d built together.

 

“I used to love this bench,” Dean said after a while.

 

“Until I ruined it all.”

 

“That was just one day.”

 

Cas sat up, eyes open. Dean kept his arm around him, but shifted to sit a little straighter.

 

“How is it just one day to you? It nearly ruined us both and we might never have gotten back together.”

 

Dean pulled his arm from around Cas and reached for his hands instead. Cas let him take them, and he watched as Dean wove their hands together and held tight.

 

“It’s one day, because it’s over. That’s not the truth for us now. You worked on your stuff and I worked on mine and we’re back together now. That was just… a bad day.”

 

Cas tucked his head and fended off the doubt and worry popping up around him. He pushed down the words that threatened.

 

“What if I’m never better than that.”

 

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Cas. I’m in this for you. No matter your career or mood or whatever- I’m here for you. And I know you’ve never understood that, but just… hear me now, would you? I don’t care about if you’re better or whatever. This is you and I want you, always.”

 

A tear rolled off Cas’s nose and landed on their clasped hands.

 

“I love you, Dean Winchester,” Cas said it soft but firm, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

 

Dean sat up a little and squeezed his hands tighter. “Say it again?” He asked, almost a whisper.

 

Cas suddenly felt strong, stronger than he’d felt in a long time and he had the courage to look up and into Dean’s intense eyes before he spoke.

 

“I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone before. Not really, but I- I love you. I love the way we are together and the way you love me. I almost lost you once and I can’t do it again. If it wasn’t so soon I’d ask you to marry me, but-” he sucked in a big stuttering breath.

 

“I’d say yes, Cas.” Dean said. “If you want to ask.”

 

Cas’s heart thudded to a halt.

 

“I-I-I don’t have a ring or anything like that.”

 

“I do,” Dean said. “In the Impala. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.” He looked down at their hands. “I was going to ask you, but if you want to go first I won’t say no.”

 

Cas stared at him. His heart suddenly righted itself and he knew he had to be the one to ask. “Dean, will you marry me?” he asked before his nerves could get the better of him.

 

“Yes.” Dean said, and kissed him deep and intense. When he allowed a breath to pass between them he met Cas’s forehead with his own and grinned. “Say it again,” Dean whispered.

 

“Will you marry me?” Cas asked again with a laugh, but Dean shook his head against him and Cas slowed, serious again and this time knowing exactly what Dean needed from him.

  
“I love you,” Cas said, and he knew without a doubt that it was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, even if I made you cry or hate me for a chapter or two (or five. I know it was rough times for a while there). 
> 
> I can't even begin to say enough about the amazing comments that have been thoughtful and kind and encouraging. They have kept me writing every night. Y'all are awesome!
> 
> I had a really hard time deciding exactly what to include in this last chapter. I actually have about 5k in stuff I didn't include in this fic, so I imagine there will be a timestamp or two in the coming months. Consider subscribing to the series if you want to make sure you see those whenever they come out!
> 
> I have more work coming out soon- My DCBB coms out on Oct. 5 and it called The House I Built For You. After that I'll start publishing another DeanCas fic.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at captainawesomeellie.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I really appreciate your comments.
> 
> You can find more of my work at captainawesomeellie.tumblr.com


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